Would Jesus Call People to Repentance in the Aftermath of Tragedy?

Tony Miano is no stranger to controversy, receiving insults and death threats, and even arrest for the heinous crimes of calling sin what God calls sin and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Contrary to what is often alleged by Tony's critics, his gospel is not a gospel of hate. His gospel is the same gospel that Jesus and the Apostles preached. Tony preaches that all have sinned, and that all who repent and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins will be forgiven and have eternal life.  

It's not surprising that people who do not profess Christ find this message offensive. What is sad is that so many who profess to be Christians find this message offensive. In observing Tony's Twitter interactions and watching some of his street preaching interactions, you see that some of his most vocal critics are professing Christians who are embarrassed by his proclamation of the Biblical gospel. It's maddening to see people make bold assertions about the nature and ministry of Christ that are easily contradicted by the gospel accounts of Jesus' life and ministry.

Recently, Tony sent out a tweet in response to the news of the Nepal earthquake. You can read that tweet below, along with an example of a response by a professing Christian.

Now, let's be honest about what Tony did and did not say in the original tweet. He did not say he was glad the earthquake happened.  He did not say he was happy that buildings were destroyed.  He did not say that he was happy that people of other religions were dead.  

The event happened, and Tony said what any genuine Christian should desire, that people turn from false religions and trust in Christ.  You cannot call yourself a Christian and not desire that.  Jesus came not to merely demonstrate love, but to seek and to save the lost. Paul's burden for the lost people of Israel was so great that he said he would become accursed if it meant the salvation of Israel (Romans 9:1-3). The Jesus who is okay with people practicing false religion or remaining in their sins is a false Jesus of demonic origin.  

But was it right for Tony to use the occasion of a tragedy to call people to repentance and belief in the gospel? Are the people saying that Jesus wouldn't do so correct? Would Jesus call people to repent in the aftermath of a tragedy?

Actually there's no question to answer. Jesus did exactly that in Luke 13:1-5.  Those who say that Jesus wouldn't demonstrate an ignorance of the true Jesus.

Read Luke 13:1-5 below.

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” 

Jesus is asked about one, and then brings up another, event in which people lost their lives.  One was an act of evil, the other a tragic accident.  We don't know exactly when these events occurred or how far removed from the events Jesus was when he made these statements, but we can safely assume that everyone in the audience knew about the events, or would soon know if the slaying of the Galileans had taken place immediately before Jesus' teaching.  

Jesus' message was repent, or you too shall perish.  Jesus used the occasion of tragedy to confront people with their own sinfulness and need for forgiveness.  

The passage is immediately preceded by Luke 12:57-59.

And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

In context, Jesus' message could not be clearer. You are on your way to face the judge for the debt of your sin, and you better settle your account before you get there or the debt will never be paid.  

Tragedy and evil remind us that we don't know when our appearance before the judge is going to come.  This isn't emotional manipulation or trying to capitalize on tragedy.  This is reality.

We are all going to die, and none of us knows when that will come.  Tragedy reminds us we could lose our lives at any moment.  Jesus himself set the example of using tragedy to remind people of the need for repentance and faith.  

Anyone who dies in their sins will suffer God's wrath for eternity.  The only way to be spared God's wrath is to repent of sin and trust Jesus, who bore God's wrath for His people on the cross in a once for all sacrifice.  

So tragedy reminds us of our own mortality and should be a reminder to Christians of the urgency of our task.  Thousands of people in Nepal woke up a few days ago with no idea that hours later they would stand before the God who made them and be judged for their sins.  Christians must urgently fulfill the Great Commission, taking the gospel to all peoples so that all who believe will not perish but have eternal life.

If you call yourself a Christian and you are ashamed of the gospel being proclaimed, you need to examine yourself to see if you are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). You cannot claim Christ while being ashamed of Christ's gospel.  You need to read the gospels and the rest of the New Testament in their entirety rather than cherry picking a few out of context verses and make sure that the Jesus you believe in is the true Jesus.

There is never a wrong time to share the gospel.  Tragedy may strike at any moment.  It is appointed for man once to die and after that comes judgment (Hebrews 9:27). As Christians, we have the message of the only possible salvation from that the judgment.  Instead of criticizing people like Tony Miano who are doing everything they can to proclaim that message to those still dead in their trespasses and sins, we should be convicted of our own apathy towards the lost and join him in proclaiming the gospel of God's glorious grace.

**Update**

I preached a sermon on Luke 13:1-5 a few years ago.  You may watch that sermon here.

Andy Stanley's Dishonest, Deceptive, and Dangerous Teaching

This past Sunday I stayed up late to watch North Point’s Sunday morning service online, and once again, I found Andy Stanley’s sermon to be so shockingly bad that I feel compelled to write about it.  I remain convinced that this particular sermon series is going to have long lasting effects on American evangelicalism.  Stanley is not just a local church pastor, or even just the leader of a network of churches.  He is an influencer of the influencers in American Evangelicalism.  I am certain that we are going to see the content of this sermon series being repeated by other pastors around the country in the months ahead.

Stanley’s contention is that the early church got off to a great start, but throughout the history of the church there has been a tendency to return to what he is calling the Temple Model, which is characterized by sacred places, sacred texts, sacred men, and sincere followers.  It is absolutely true that the visible church has been corrupted time and again through the history of the church.  The church has an enemy, and that enemy will attack the church from without, through persecution and pressure to conform to the world, and within, through false doctrine.  What’s fascinating is that as you look back over the history of the church, what you see is that the greater the persecution against the church, the purer the church tends to be.  The freer the church is, false doctrine and corruption abound.  

The church in America has been the most free church in the history of the world.  It’s not surprising that we’ve splintered into thousands of denominations, and have spun off countless theological cults.  The Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the signs and wonders cults all originated in America.  There has been a backlash against this in recent years, but the problem is that people tend to correctly identify the problems and then offer unbiblical solutions.  The opposite error of an error is also an error.

With Stanley’s current sermon series, he has identified the wrong problems and is offering wrong solutions.  Some of those problems will be discussed below.

The Temple Model

The first problem is that Stanley has built his entire sermon series around combating something that he made up.  The Temple Model is not spoken of in Scripture.  In the history of the church, as far as I know, no one has ever identified the Temple Model as a threat or a corrupting influence on the church.  

It is particularly troubling that Stanley has repeatedly lumped the Jewish Temple system in with other pagan religions, as if there’s no difference.  I am certain that Stanley knows that God instituted the priestly system of Israel (sacred men), commanded Moses to build the Tabernacle and later allowed Solomon to build the Temple (sacred place), and instructed Moses to write down the Law and have it read to the people regularly (sacred text).  The people were commanded to obey all that God had instituted, which had they done so would have made them sincere followers.  The history of Israel is that for nearly 1000 years they disregarded almost everything God told them, and then after returning from exile the Pharisees developed over time and added to the Law, creating their own religious system in place of the instructions God had given them.  

So it is an egregious error for Stanley to present the Jewish religious system as something bad, or no different than Greek and Roman mythology and temples.  Hebrews tells us that the Tabernacle/Temple, priests, and sacrificial system were earthly copies and shadows of Heavenly things (Hebrews 8:5).  Jesus was the fulfillment of all those things.

What Jesus and the Apostles warned against was not a return to the Temple Model, but the leaven of the Pharisees.  Stanley said Sunday, “Paul said that a little bit of the Temple Model can ruin the whole thing.”  That’s false.  Entirely untrue.  Paul said nothing remotely like that. He did say a little leaven leavens the whole lump in Galatians 5:9, but the leaven he was referring to was not the Temple model, it was justification by keeping the Law as the Judaizers in Galatia were teaching. 

Where the Bible talks about sacred places, sacred texts, sacred men, and sincere followers, provided they are being obedient to what God has commanded, these things are always viewed in a very positive light.  

I don’t know why Stanley has chosen to present things this way.  I don’t know his heart motivations.  From where I’m sitting, it looks like he’s a man with an agenda, and that his agenda is not in line with God’s revealed will.

Church History

I’ve already written one post showing what the earliest non-Apostolic church fathers wrote to and about the early church.  Simply put, Stanley’s claims that the early church didn’t study the Bible are patently false.  He is not telling the truth, and he doesn’t even have to go outside the New Testament to know that the New Testament writings are important.  Peter wrote in 2 Peter 3:15-16 that Paul’s writings are Scripture and believers should draw their doctrine from them. 

Writing around the year 150, long before Constantine and Nicea, Justin Martyr described what happened on Sunday gatherings of Christians: the public reading of Scripture, an exhortation by the pastor to the congregation to obey what they had heard read, taking communion together, and the collection of money which the pastor distributed to those who had need.  People gathered in a sacred place, read from a sacred text, listened to a sermon by a sacred man, and the sincere followers took communion together.  

Almost everything Stanley has said about the early church in this series is directly contradicted by the writings of the church fathers.  

NT Imperatives

My jaw literally dropped Sunday night when Stanley said that the New Testament imperatives were not rules for Christians to follow, but examples of how to love our neighbors.  In all my studies I have never come across one scholar or teacher who has taught this.  Not one.  I reached out to Dan Philips on Twitter Monday and asked if he had ever heard anyone teach that, and he said no.  I even did a Google search to see if I could find someone else who has taught this and found nothing.  As best as I can tell, this is something new in the 2000 year history of the church.  Stanley is on an island with this one, and that is not a good place for a pastor to be.

The Nature of Sin

What troubled me most Sunday was Stanley’s claim that Christian sin has nothing to do with God, but only concern for other people.  This borders on blasphemy.  In Stanley’s eyes, lying isn’t wrong because it’s sin against God, it’s wrong because it hurts another person.  He flat out said, “The reason you don’t (shouldn’t) lie has nothing to do with God.”  Sexual sin, he said, isn’t wrong because it’s sin against God, it’s wrong because it harms another person.  There is an element of truth in those statements; our sins do hurt other people.  But for a Christian pastor to suggest that our sin doesn’t offend God but only hurts other people is astounding.  When David committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband what did he say?  “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:4a).  David basically forced himself on a married woman then had her husband murdered, and he said he sinned against God and God alone.  

Read what the author of Hebrews said about sin among professing Christians in Hebrews 10:23-31:

²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴ And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵ not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 

²⁶ For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. ²⁸ Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

We were made in the image of God.  Every sin is a cosmic act of treason.  It has everything to do with God.  Unbelievers will suffer the eternal, terrible wrath of God because of their sin against him.  For believers, Jesus suffered God’s wrath on the cross in our place.  For Stanley to then say that what Jesus suffered to atone for has nothing to do with God is absolutely untrue, and incredibly dangerous.  

I said last week that Stanley appears to be embracing theological liberalism, and this line of thinking is classic liberalism.   

Stanley's concluding point of the sermon Sunday was that the Jesus model is centered on the you beside you.  No.  The Jesus modeled is centered on Jesus.  He is the author and perfector of our faith.  He is the one who can save us from our sins.  Our keeping of the Law, and loving our neighbors is Law, cannot save us.  

It is looking more and more likely that Stanley is set to depart from orthodoxy and embrace an aberrant theology.  I continue to pray for his sake and the sake of the thousands he influences that this doesn’t happen.    

  

The Truth About Sacred Texts and Sacred Men in the Early Church

I mentioned in my last post that I've listened to Andy Stanley's most recent sermon, titled Recycled, three times.  One of the things I found so frustrating about the sermon, among many things I found frustrating, was his distorted presentation of church history.  It would be impossible to give a comprehensive treatment of the history of the church in 30 minutes, but Stanley made several statements that are demonstrably false.  

Particularly troubling was his insistence that for the first three hundred years of the church, sacred men and sacred texts were uninportant in the church. The truth is the opposite. In the earliest non-Scriptural writings, the church fathers repeatedly quoted and referenced the Scriptures, and directed Chrsitians to obey their pastors. 

I've been reading the church fathers this year, and below are some quotes from the very earliest non-Apostolic church fathers.  Though not inspired Scripture, these writings give us a clear picture of what the early church actually believed and practiced.  Included below are quotes from Clement of Rome in his epistle to the Corinthian church, "Mathetes" (a disciple) of the Apostles to Diognetus, Polycarp to the Philippians, and Ignatius to the Ephesians and Magnesians.

Clement of Rome to the Church in Corinth

These are only three brief quotes from a very long letter, but even in these few words we see Clement instructing the Corinthians to submit to the authority of the presbyters (pastors) and to look carefully into the Scriptures, which are true utterances of the Holy Spirit.  You can't read more than a few sentences of Clement without finding a direct quote of the Scriptures or a reference.

Mathetes to Diognetus

Notice the doctrinal richness? Although Mathetes is not quoting a passage of Scripture here, he is compiling numerous phrases that do come directly from the Scriptures, Old Testament and New.  For this anonymous disciple the faith was grounded not in loving actions, but in the truth drawn from  Scripture.

Polycarp to the Church in Philippi

Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John, the beloved disciple who wrote one of the gospels, three epistles, and the book of Revelation.  Notice that Polycarp directly quotes 1 John 4:2 as authoritative truth.  Notice that Polycarp, a disciple of one of Jesus' twelve, taught that were beliefs that a person must hold to in order to be Christian - among them humanity of Christ, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the coming judgment (Hell).  

Ignatius to the Church in Ephesus

Ignatius to the Magnesians

Ignatius, like Polycarp, was a disciple of John.  He was only one person removed from the words of Jesus.  Ignatius taught a respect for and obedience to church leaders that far exceeds anything ever practiced in America.  The problem in the American church is not giving too much authority to and trust in men who have studied and shown themselves approved, we give too little respect and obedience compared with the early church.  We also see Ignatius teaching that both beliefs and actions are important in the life of a Christian.  

Putting it Together

These are just a few selected writings of the early church.  It is true that the early church was known by outsiders for their love.  I can't remember the source, but it was recorded by one outsider that the Christians not only cared for their own poor, but also the poor outside the church.  Inside though, the church was characterized by study and teaching of the Old Testament and New and leadership by faithful men who were given an elevated position of authority.

Sacred texts and sacred men are not a corruption of the true faith.  They have been the foundation of the church from the earliest days of its existence.

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.  

The Greatest Love Story Ever Told

I was scheduled to preach today, but unfortunately flooding in Jakarta caused the cancellation of the meeting.  Below is the manuscript of the sermon I was going to preach. 

Just a couple of notes before you begin reading:

1) I normally wouldn't talk about myself and my story with Maggie as much as I do at the beginning of this message, but the theme for the meeting just a few days before Valentine's Day was love and the organizers asked me to talk a little about our story.

2) My manuscripts are usually a little more wooden than the actual sermon.  Writing it out in this form puts in my mind most of the words I want to say and keeps me on track during the delivery.  When I write the manuscript I don't always know everything I'm going to say, but having this gives me most of what I need and I can fill in the rough patches as I need to.

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Let me take a few moments to introduce myself since this is the first time I've ever spoken here.  I know you probably have some questions about how I ended up in Indonesia, why I'm here speaking today, and in light of today's theme of love - how did I come to marry a Chinese-Indonesian.

So I'll start about six years ago.  I went to China in August 2009 for what was initially supposed to be one year.  I was planning to go to seminary in the US, but wasn't sure exactly what I should study or what area of ministry I should prepare for. When my pastor met a man who was recruiting people to go teach English in China for a year it seemed like the perfect opportunity. I would go to China for a year, tell some people about Jesus, spend a year away from everything I know seeking direction for the future, then go back to the States and start seminary.

5.5 years later I'm still in Asia, having only been back to the US three times for a few weeks at a time.  There were three things that happened in China that led me to stay and ultimately led me here to Indonesia.  One, I learned that the international church in Beijing had a seminary program where I could could begin working on my degree. Two, I found a great community in that church in the young adults ministry and a small group I joined.  And three, the first time I went to the church I met Maggie from Indonesia.

The first time we met that was all I learned about her.  In that first meeting my first impression was that she had a really great smile.  I learned later that her first impression of me was only that I'm fat.  A few months later we ended up in the same small group Bible study, and I started getting to know her a little better.  After a few months I asked her for a date. It didn't go as I'd hoped.  I still remember the look of utter terror on her face as she said, "Oh no! Oh no! I'll think about it." So things really got off to a rocky start for us.

A few days later she said we could have lunch as friends, which we did.  The next few months were really confusing because I didn't know what Maggie was thinking, and I learned later that Maggie didn't know what she was thinking either.  Finally in August 2010 she said we could date. In February 2011, we came to Indonesia, my first time here. I met her family that week and asked her to marry me. She said yes, and on July 23, 2011 we were married in Jakarta.  

We stayed in Beijing for the first year and a half of marriage, then moved to Malaysia in 2013 so I could study full-time and finish my seminary degree.  Unfortunately we were having some trouble getting a visa for Maggie to stay in Malaysia, so after only six months there we relocated again, this time to Jakarta.  

We're now expecting out first child, due to be born in mid-June.  

Marriage is never easy, and for us being from such different cultures and backgrounds there have been some difficult times in these first few years. We've been honest with each other and and with others that if our marriage wasn't built on a foundation stronger than our feelings for each other we probably wouldn't have made it thorough the first couple of years.

There was a passage of Scripture that we had read at our wedding, and I would like to read that passage to you now.  This passage tells us about a love that is much greater, much better, than the love that Maggie and I have for each other.  The passage is found in Ephesians 5:22-33.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

The apostle Paul wrote these words nearly 2000 years ago, and just a few years after the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  In these few sentences he reveals something pretty amazing about marriage.  He tells us that all the way back in the beginning of time, when the first man and first woman were created by God and brought together as husband and wife, that was designed to be a living picture of the coming union of Jesus and His Bride, the church, God’s people in all times and all places.  Let's be clear that Paul didn't simply choose marriage as an analogy that represents Christ and the church. God created marriage from the very beginning to be a real life picture of this relationship.  

So I want to tell you today about the love of Jesus for His bride, the Church.  But we need to notice something.  Paul says that Jesus loved the church by giving Himself up for her.  What does that mean? Why did He have to do that?  To understand that, to understand how amazing the love of Jesus is, we need to go back to that first man and first woman.  

The Bible tells us that God created the world in six days, and we're repeatedly told that God saw his creation and it was good.  On the sixth day God created man, and then woman.  Something was different about man and woman.  They were made in the image of God.  They were created to be the reflection of God on the earth.  They were made to walk with God.  They were made to subdue and have dominion over the earth.  We see in the second chapter of the Bible that God, in his loving kindness, made a garden with everything the man and woman needed.  God brought them together as husband and wife, and we're told they were naked and unashamed.

At the end of the sixth day we're told that God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Creation was perfect. There was no sickness, no death, no disaster.  The man and the woman lived without shame, without fear, without anxiety, without any relationship difficulties.  And above all, they were not separated from God.  It was very good.

But none of us would look at the world today and say it's very good.  With our smartphones we now receive almost moment by moment reminders that this world is not good.  Every day we are bombarded with news of natural disasters and tragic accidents.  Every day we see, in vivid detail, acts of evil committed by humans against other humans.  We ourselves from time to time receive news of the illness or death of someone we love.  It's not very good.  In fact, it's really bad.

So what happened? The third chapter of Genesis tells us.  God had told the man he could eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, but the fruit of the tree knowledge of good and evil he was not to eat, or he would surely die.  One day a serpent appeared to the woman and first twisted God's word, asking her if God said they couldn't eat any fruit in the garden.  The woman replied that they could eat the fruit of any tree but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that fruit that couldn't eat or even touch, or they would surely die.  Then the serpent denied the word of God, saying, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." The woman liked the idea of being like God, she saw that the fruit was good for eating and desirable, so she and her husband both ate.  

You might be tempted to think that God lied, because they didn't physically die.  They did remain physically alive for many years after, but what the Bible will later make clear is that though they remained physically alive, spiritually they died in that moment.  The moment they ate the fruit they went from being naked and unashamed to realizing their nakedness and trying to cover themselves, then hiding from God moments later. So as we're reading the story we can see that something changed.  The perfect creation was lost.  What we now call sin had entered into the world, and nothing in creation is unaffected by sin.  The whole creation now lives under a curse, the curse of sin.

God pronounced specific curses on the serpent, the woman, and the man.  The woman's curse was greatly increased pain in childbirth, and a desire to control her husband that would be met by his rule over her.  The man's curse was that he would work the earth with great difficulty just to survive, and then he would die.  The serpent's curse was that he would crawl on his belly and eat dust, and that there would be enmity between the serpent and the woman's offspring; that the woman's offspring will bruise the serpent's head, and the serpent will bruise his heel.

As we read through the Bible it doesn't take long to see the hideous nature of sin.  The woman's first son murdered her second son out of jealous anger.  In just a few generations we're told that God was grieved that he had made man because the wickedness of man was great and every thought and intention of his heart was only evil all the time.  God showed his wrath and anger towards sin by sending a flood to wipe out the earth.  But God had made a promise that a descendant of the woman would crush the serpent's head, so he kept one family alive.  Immediately though, we see the descent back into sin.  The human condition of every thought and intention of our hearts being only evil all the time didn't change.

Eventually God chose a people, Israel, to be His people.  He gave them His Law, telling them how they were to behave as his people.  The Law had no power to save them though, and for more than 1000 years they lived in a constant state of rebellion against the good, loving, faithful God who chose them to be His people, brought them out of their slavery in Egypt, and gave them the land He promised them.

It's very important for us to understand of all this.  We cannot understand the love of God, we cannot understand the love of Jesus for His bride, if we do not understand the human condition.

What the Bible tells us is that we are born physically alive, but spiritually dead. We are born under the curse of sin.  Our very nature is sinful from the moment we are conceived.  

Like the people of Noah's day, we are born with every thought and intention of our heart being only evil all the time.  We are born and continue all the days of our lives, unless God steps in and gives us a new heart, in rebellion against the good, loving, righteous, and holy God who made us.  We are born hating God.

If you don't believe me, consider my soon to be born child.  We're not going to teach him/her to disrespect our authority as his/her parents, but he/she will.  We're not going to teach him/her to throw a tantrum every time he/she doesn't get his/her way, but he/she will.  We're not going to teach him/her to lie, but he/she will.  We're not going to teach him/her to steal, but he/she will.  We're not going to teach him/her to bully younger or smaller children, but at some point he/she probably will.  We're not going to teach him/her to be selfish, but he/she will be.  All of these things are in a child's very nature.

God, in his goodness, gives parents, societies, and governments to curb these behaviors and keep us from being as bad as we could be, but let's be honest - if it wasn't for our parents, if it wasn't for society, holding us in check and correcting those behaviors we would all be savages.  It's in our nature.  It's who we are.  

It's who humanity has been since the first man and the first woman ate that fruit.  Psalm 2 describes the nations, the mass of humanity, raging against God in blind hatred and trying to overthrow him.  That's me, and that's you, at least as we were born.  God is not threatened by this, but he does have righteous and holy wrath towards sin and sinners.  He hates sin. He hates this rebellion against him and in that same Psalm and numerous other places in the Bible he promises to bring utter destruction, not just in this life but for all eternity, on those who rebel against him.

Once again, that's me and that's you, as we're born.  Paul says in Ephesians 2 that the people of the church were formerly children of God's wrath.   Psalm 14, Psalm 53, and Romans 3 all say that there is none who does good. Not one.  Psalm 5 says God hates all evildoers.  Hebrews 9:27 says it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.  Meaning, we are all going to die.  We are born spiritually dead, and one day we are going to physically die.  On that we will face judgment for our sins.  And left on our own, we will have no defense.  No one will be found guiltless.  Left on our we will be held to account for all our sins, suffering the wrath of God without end for all of eternity.

With all of that understood, let’s now talk about the love of God. From the very beginning of man’s rebellion against God, God made a promise.  Remember what he told the serpent?  That the serpent would bruise the heel of the woman’s offspring, but her offspring would bruise the serpent’s head.

As you read through the Bible you see God being faithful to that promise, and clarifying who that offspring would be.  We’re not talking about offspring plural, as in all of humanity.  It is singular.  One man was going to come and crush the serpent’s head to rescue his people from the curse of sin.

We follow the story from Adam and Eve through their third son Seth.  Through the generations to Noah, then through Noah’s son Shem to Abraham.  From Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Judah.  Many years later King David was told that his descendent would forever be on the throne.  

Finally, around 2,000 years ago that promised Son came.  God in human flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He was born of a virgin - which was not just a miracle but a very important fact.  He was born not of two sinful parents, but conceived by the Holy Spirit.  He was born without the curse of sin that every human from Adam and Eve forward were born into.  He was tempted. Where Adam was tempted in a garden with an abundance of food surrounding him, Jesus was tempted in the wilderness after 40 days of fasting.  Unlike Adam, Jesus didn’t sin.  He lived all the days of his life without sin.  There was never a moment in his entire life that he was not doing exactly what the Father wanted him to do.

At the end of his life the people of Israel and the Roman authorities conspired together to put Jesus to death.  He was mocked, beaten, spit on, had a crown of thorns placed on his head, forced to carry his own cross, and then had his hands and his feet nailed to a cross, lifted up, and left to die a slow, excruciatingly painful death.  The creator allowed his own creation to put him to death.

Why? To redeem his bride. God is just.  He could not simply overlook our sins against him.  The penalty of sin is death.  Someone had to die.  Someone had to suffer God’s wrath.  It should have been me.  It should have been you.  

But God is also merciful.  And God so loved that the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  

God poured out the wrath you and I deserve on His Son Jesus.  If you want to understand how much God hates sin, look at the cross.  See what he did to his own Son.  

And If you want to understand how much God loves his people, look at the cross.  See what he did to his own Son.

It was the will of God the Father to crush his own Son. Jesus loved His Father and loved His bride, the church, so for the joy set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

See, the good news for us today is that Jesus didn’t stay dead.  Jesus didn’t deserve to die, Jesus lived a life that was pleasing to God.  So God raised him from the dead, never to die again.

The curse of sin and death has been broken.  God’s wrath towards sin and sinners has been satisfied.  Jesus has paid the price to redeem his bride.

Jesus had a simple message.  Repent and believe.  Repentance is turning from your sins, forsaking them and leaving them behind, belief or faith is trusting Jesus to forgive you of your sins.  Jesus said and still says today that all who do this will have eternal life.  Jesus gave up his life to rescue a sinful, rebellious people who hated him from their sin and rebellion, and make us his body and his bride.

The Bible says that at the end of time Jesus is coming back.  All those who believe in him will be resurrected to eternal life.  What was lost in the garden when the man and woman sinned will be restored.  We will once again walk with God in perfection.  The Bible calls this the wedding supper of the Lamb, the Lamb being Jesus who was sacrificed in his place.  He will be united with his bride, and all who believe will live with him forever.  It is the true happily ever after that we all long for. 

This is the greatest love story ever told.  Jesus giving himself up to save his bride from the wrath of God.  

If you’re here today and you have never trusted Jesus to forgive your sins I want you to know two things.  One, you are a great sinner.  You have rebelled against the good God who made you.  You are not innocent, and the wrath of God abides on you.  But two, Jesus is a great Savior.  If you repent and believe, he will save you from your sins and give you eternal life.

I know that many of you are believers already, and I want you to remember that God loves you.  Ephesians 1 tells us that God chose his people before the foundation of the world, predestined us for adoption, redeemed us with blood of Jesus, and has sealed us with the Holy Spirit.  If you are in Christ, you are securely in Christ. You have been purchased in a legal transaction that cannot be undone.  

There may be days when you question God’s love for you.  Maybe it’s because of your sin.  Maybe there’s an illness or a death of someone you love.  Maybe it feels like your whole world is falling apart.  Know this: If you are in Christ you cannot be separated from the love of God.

Paul wrote this in Romans 8:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, 

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; 

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

If you are in Christ, you are securely held in the love of Christ and will be forevermore.  Christ has already paid the price of your redemption.  Your sins are washed away and the righteousness of Christ belongs to you.  God no longer calls you his enemy, but welcomes you to his table as a beloved daughter or son.  This is the great love of God.  

 

Three Things the Top 25 Christian Books Sold in 2014 Reveal About American Christianity

Earlier this week the list of the top 25 books sold in Christian bookstores in 2014 was released.  Among the 25 books on the list there is exactly one that I would remotely consider Christian.  Ironically enough, that one is authored by a man, Thom Rainer, who makes his living selling the other 24.  Some of the books are harmless enough, perhaps even helpful, but not really Christian.  I would put books like The Five Love Languages and Boundaries into this category.  While written by Christians and supposedly based on Biblical principles, they’re not really Christian books in the sense that they don’t have any real connection to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Unfortunately, and unfortunately not surprising, many of the books are beyond problematic.  Five of the books are some form of Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, a woman who claims she’s writing the very words of Jesus.  Only, it turns out there are factual errors, and her Jesus doesn’t really sound anything at all like the Jesus of Scripture.  Sarah Young is a false prophet.  Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes teach Word-of-Faith theology, a theological system that diverges from orthodox Christianity on virtually every point.  Heaven is for Real is not true.  Heaven is for real, but the Bible tells us so, and tells us that no one can go and come back.  Paul saw Heaven and he wasn’t permitted to tell about it.  He certainly didn’t write a book to profit off of the experience.  

I could go on, but frankly looking at the list just hurts my heart.  I get accused of being arrogant, divisive, unloving, judgmental, and Pharisaical quite frequently online.  I do listen when the accusations are made, but I don’t think the accusations are correct.  I grieve for the church in America.  I really do.  The things I say, the articles I share, and now write, are all from a place of genuine grief over the state of the church in my home country.  

What does the list of 2014 Christian bestsellers reveal about American Christianity?  Here are three things I see.

1.) Most professing Christians in America have no discernment at all.  American Christians, generally speaking, cannot distinguish truth from error.  The top 25 list is full of verifiable false prophets and false teachers.  No one seems to recognize this or even care.  The sad reality is that many professing Christians are actually taught not to care.  Their pastors not only fail to teach and rebuke sound doctrine, although that is a Biblical requirement for a man to hold the office of pastor (Titus 1:9), they actually tell people not to engage in theological study and questioning whether or not what is being taught is true.  Jesus had a word for men like this though: hirelings (John 10:7-18).  

Question to ask yourself: Does my pastor teach sound doctrine?  Or, does my pastor tell me doctrine and theology don’t matter?  If it’s the latter, run for your life!  Seriously.  Nothing less than your soul is at stake.

2.) Most professing Christians in America practice a faith that is completely divorced from historic Christianity.  A few years ago some researches coined the phrase Moralistic Therapeutic Deism to describe the religion that is practiced in America under the name of Christianity.  The basic premise is that professing Christians in America believe that there is a God, that he wants them to do good things, and he exists to make their lives better.  The list of 25 best sellers is full of books that fall into this category.  You probably won’t find much, if any, talk about Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected for the forgiveness of sins, the reality of Hell, or God’s judgment on unrepentant sinners in any of the 25 books.  Mostly you’ll find how to live a more enjoyable life right now.  

Question to ask yourself: Does my pastor preach Christ crucified and resurrected for the forgiveness of sins, or does he preach my best life now?  If it’s the latter, run for your life!  Seriously.  Nothing less than your soul is at stake.

3.) Most professing Christians in America are not Christians.  I know this is awfully judgmental of me, but I am convinced it is true.  Research has shown that professing Christians can’t articulate the basics of the Christian faith and usually believe things to be true that are outright contradictions of Scripture.  This is why my heart breaks.  This is why I’m constantly trying to point out the problems in American Christianity.  I am convinced that the vast majority of professing Christians in America are going to stand before Jesus on the Day of Judgment and hear, “I never knew you; depart from me.”  

Questions to ask yourself:

If someone asked me what it means to be a Christian, could I tell them with confidence that I am delivering the same message delivered by Jesus and the Apostles?  If the answer is no, how can I claim to believe what I cannot explain?

Do I believe that people are basically good, or that they are born under the curse of sin with no good in them unless they are given new life by Christ?  If you believe the former you don’t believe what the Bible teaches.

Do I believe that it is possible to get to Heaven by being a good person?  If you believe this you don’t believe what the Bible teaches.

Do I believe that saying a sinner’s prayer and being baptized means I go to Heaven no matter what? If you believe this you don’t believe what the Bible teaches.

Do I believe that the outcome of a Christian life is a life relatively free of problems and full of personal fulfillment?  If you believe this you don’t believe what the Bible teaches.      

Do I believe in the God of the Bible or the false god of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism? Do I know the difference?

Friends, I’ve mentioned several times in this article that nothing less than your soul is at stake.  That is the truth.  Religion is not a game; we are talking today about the difference between eternal life in glory with God or eternal death in Hell separated from God.  Do you know where you stand with God right now?

The message of the Bible is actually quite simple.  All people born from Adam and Eve onward are born under the curse of sin.  We are born physically alive but spiritually dead.  Because of the curse of sin we rebel against the good, loving, and holy God who made us in his image every chance we get.  The Bible repeatedly says there is none who does good, that all have gone astray.  God is loving and merciful, but he is also just and holy.  His holy righteousness demands a penalty for sin.  That penalty is death, physically in this life and eternally in Hell.

Because God is loving and merciful He sent His eternally existent Son, Jesus, to live on the earth as a man and die a sacrificial death in order to redeem a people from the curse for Himself.  Jesus lived without sin all the days of His life.  God poured out His wrath on His own Son, allowing His creation to put His Son to death on a Roman cross.  Three days later, to prove that Jesus didn’t deserve to die and that His sacrifice had been accepted, God raised Jesus from the dead.  He lives to this day at the right hand of God the Father and will live forevermore.  

Jesus’ message was simple.  Repent and believe the gospel.  Repentance and belief means believing Jesus’ message and forsaking your sin and all else to worship Jesus as Lord.  There is no amount of good that you can do to erase your debt of sin.  The forgiveness of your sins comes by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  When you come to true faith in Jesus, all of your sins are washed away and Jesus' righteousness is credited to you so that you can stand before God holy and blameless.  While your good works can’t save you, the evidence of genuine faith is the doing of the good works commanded in Scripture.

Do you have genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you ever repented of your sin and trusted in Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins?  Does your life look like the life of a believer in Jesus as described by Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament?  If not, please don’t delay.  Believe, and have eternal life today.

Weeping and Rejoicing Over Genesis 1-4

I began my 2015 reading plan today, reading Genesis 1-4 in English and trying to read Matthew 1 in Greek.

The opening chapters of Genesis are extremely important for multiple reasons.  I probably reference Genesis 1-3 in my teaching and preaching more than any other portion of Scripture.  You cannot understand the Bible, you cannot understand this world, without understanding Genesis 1-3.  It is the foundation on which the entire Bible stands.  

Despite my familiarity with these chapters, I find myself sorrowful and rejoicing every time I read them or think on them.

I weep over what was lost.  God created a good, very good, earth.  Everything he created was good, including the crown of creation, mankind.  He also demonstrated His goodness in preparing a garden for the man to work, and providing a wife for the man when no helper suitable for him was found.  

A man and a woman, naked and unashamed, in a garden with everything they needed provided.  No sickness, no death, no pain, no fear, no worry, no anxiety, no relational discord.  Most importantly, there was no separation from God.  

Then the man and the woman disbelieved God and trusted the lies of the serpent and the desire of their eyes over the words God had spoken.  Everything changed.  

Suddenly they realized they were naked, and there was shame.  

Then came the curses.  The serpent was cursed, the man and the woman were cursed, all creation was cursed.  The man and the woman were sent out of the garden, and out of God’s presence.  They were sent out of paradise with a promise that life would be full of pain hardship, and then they would die.

In Genesis 4 the first human ever born murdered his own brother out of envy and anger.  A few generations later one of his descendants boasts about his own murders.  The heart of man was irrevocably corrupted.  It seems that all hope is lost.

But in the curses and the aftermath God made a promise and gave us a picture of the hope to come.

In Genesis 3:15 God told the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” When we read this in English we might not pick up on the fact the offspring is singular.  One man will crush the serpent’s head.

In Genesis 3:21 we’re told that the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. They had been told that if they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would die. And one day they would.  But that day something else died in their place.  Not only did a sacrifice die in their place, the sacrifice provided clothing to cover their shame and protect them as they went out into the now-cursed world.  

Then I come to Matthew 1, and it begins with a genealogy.  Although Matthew begins with Abraham rather than Adam and Eve, he is making a point - the woman’s offspring, the child promised first to Eve, then to Abraham, then to David has arrived.  God was faithful to his promise.

The offspring, named Jesus because he would save his people from their sins, succeeded where Adam failed.  Adam and Eve succumbed to sin under the best of circumstances; Jesus resisted in the worst of circumstances (contrast Genesis 2-3 with Matthew 4:1-11).  Where Adam and Eve doubted God’s word, Jesus quoted the words of His Father to the devil.

He remained sinless his entire life.  And although he did no wrong, although he was the one person in the history of the earth who didn’t deserve to die, he was sentenced to the death and suffered great pain on the cross.

In doing so He fulfilled the promise of Genesis 3:15 and the picture of Genesis 3:21.  

In giving up his life his heel was bruised, but he crushed the serpent’s head.  Sin and death were defeated forever.

In giving up his life he provided for his people a covering for their sin and shame.  For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God proved this by raising Jesus from the dead.  The promise for those who believe is that the earth will one day again be what it once was.  All who repent and believe in Jesus’ gospel will die, but will also be resurrected to new life in the new creation.  Man will once again walk with God on a good earth.  Every tear will be wiped from our eyes, death will be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.  

So today I mourn what was lost. And today I rejoice for what has been done and what is yet to come.  

Philip Yancey's Understanding of Grace is Not Amazing

Well, I had a topic for a new post ready to go, had it half-written in my mind already, and then this interview with Philip Yancey showed on my Facebook timeline.  I feel the need to respond to Yancey’s statements.

Yancey’s basic premise is this - People loved Jesus and hate Christians. We need to change what we’re saying and doing so people will like us the same way they liked Jesus.

Sadly, Yancey is either willfully or ignorantly misrepresenting the Biblical and historical record of Jesus’ life and the attitude the world has displayed towards Christians since.  

Those people who loved Jesus so much?  Eventually they yelled, “Crucify him!” and spit in his face as he was being beaten, forced to wear a crown of thorns, forced to carry his own cross, and then crucified - one the most shameful and excruciatingly painful forms of execution this sin-cursed world has ever come up with.  In fact, the word excruciating originates from crucifixion.  

Jesus’ followers?  Stephen was stoned (Acts 7) and James was killed with the sword (Acts 12).  Throughout the book of Acts the first Christians were beaten, imprisoned, and chased out town after town under the threat of death.  History says that all of Jesus’ disciples were martyred with exception of John, who died in exile after surviving being burned in oil.  Nero used Christians as human torches to light his garden.  Other early Christians were fed to lions as a spectator sport.  When Roman Catholicism, and its perversions of the gospel, became the dominant force in Europe those who dared to preach the true gospel were put to death by the Roman Catholic Church.  

This is the history of Jesus and his followers.

Before I go any farther I need to say, yes, absolutely, there are professing Christians who make a mockery of the gospel preaching a hate-filled message of moralism, and some mis-guided Christians who think that enforcing Christian morality on unbelievers is what God desires.  I believe those people actually represent a very small percentage of American Christianity, but receive a disproportionate percentage of attention. That said, let’s examine some of Yancey’s quotes.

When you interview non-Christians and just ask them, “Tell me about Christians,” they use words like judgmental, self-righteous, hypocritical and then a lot of ‘anti’ words: “They’re anti-science, they’re anti-gay, they’re anti-abortion, they’re probably anti-sex.”

Do you know why unbelievers feel this way about Christians?  Because they hate the truth.  They worship the gods of science, sexual liberation, and freedom - and when we tell them what the true God says they hate it and hate us.  What does God’s word say about humanity apart from Christ, those who know the truth but deny it? The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 1:18-32. I’ve included verses 28-32 below.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. 

These are the people Yancey is worried about not liking Christians.  Why?

Yancey also identifies three types of Christians he thinks unrepentant sinners like: activists, artists, and pilgrims.  What follows will be his quotes and my responses.

Activists, those are the people who reach out with acts of mercy. It touches people’s hearts. And then they’re open to the message. I can travel to places and I can see the long-term effect of Christians who never talk about their faith, yet they’re reaching out with acts of mercy. They’re affecting people’s hearts, and eventually those people want to know, “Why are you doing this?”

So basically, Yancey wants Christians who show love but don’t speak love.  He wants Christians who will give a hungry man a piece of bread and send him on his way without warning him that he will one day stand before a righteous and holy God who harbors righteous wrath towards all sinners.  He wants us to send that man on his way with a full stomach and no knowledge of the fact that repentance of forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to be spared of the wrath to come.  The world loved Jesus when he had dinner with tax collectors and prostitutes.  The world crucified Jesus when he claimed to be God and called them to repent of their sins.  They will love us as long we keep our mouths shut and serve the poor, needy, and oppressed as well.  The minute we open our mouths and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, they will turn on us just as they turned on Jesus.  

Artists are also effective. Art sneaks in at a subconscious level. The Church historically was the great patron of the arts, and now, some churches are, some churches aren’t. Artists are hard to control, and yet, they are effective in communicating the Gospel to a society that is resistant to it.

I find this the least objectionable of the three, but the statement is still problematic.  For one, the gospel cannot be communicated without words.  It simply can’t.  Paul said in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  We can hint at the gospel with non-verbal art, but we cannot call people to repentance and trust in Christ without, you know, calling them to repent and trust in Christ.  And when it comes to verbal art, no artist who explicitly communicates the gospel - telling people that they’ve sinned against a righteous and holy God and must humble themselves, repent, and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins - is going be accepted in the mainstream of society.  

I love Lecrae’s music and I don’t have a problem with him making art that doesn’t contain an explicit gospel proclamation in every song.  No Christian would be angry at a businessman for not preaching Christ in every business meeting or a teacher for not preaching the gospel in every class.  And while it’s possible that someone will become interested in Christianity through Lecrae’s music, they cannot become a Christian without hearing and responding to a clear proclamation of the gospel.  The same is true for any form of Christian art.  

And the last phrase I use is pilgrims. We can say, “Look, we’re just traveling along the same road you do, but we know something about the destination, and this is how it has helped our lives,” instead of, “We’re on the inside, you’re on the outside. You’re no good. You’re going to hell.”

If you look at Jesus’ stories, He talks about lost people, lost coins, lost sheep, the lost son. I’ve started looking at people as lost. There are many people who are just wandering around, not knowing why they’re here, how to live, what decisions they should make. And as pilgrims on the same road, we can say, “Here are some clues we’ve learned that may help.”

These two paragraphs are extremely troubling.  These statements cause me to question whether Philip Yancey knows the gospel at all.  Christians are not on the same road as unbelievers.  Jesus himself said this!  “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14). 

From Genesis to Revelation the Bible is full of insider and outsider language.  The Bible repeatedly and explicitly says that apart from Christ people are no good.  Paul in Romans 3:9-18, quoting from Psalms 14 and 53:

 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: 

“None is righteous, no, not one; 

  no one understands; 

no one seeks for God. 

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; 

no one does good, 

not even one.” 

“Their throat is an open grave; 

they use their tongues to deceive.” 

“The venom of asps is under their lips.” 

  “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 

  “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 

  in their paths are ruin and misery, 

  and the way of peace they have not known.” 

  “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 

Isaiah 53:6a - “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way.”

Mr. Yancey seems to not understand much of what the Bible says at all.  It appears that, like so many, he has selectively picked a few stories about Jesus that he likes and ignored everything that doesn’t fit with who he wants God to be.  

The message of the Bible is not that people are good, having only made a few mistakes along the way.  The message of the Bible is that because of the sin nature we were all born with we hate God with all our being.  We despise our Creator and wish him dead.  When he came to earth and dwelt among us we did kill him.

But it was in the act of sacrifice that the true love of God was displayed.  God’s holy wrath, perfect justice, and amazing grace all on display on a bloody cross, and three days later and empty tomb.  The second part of Isaiah 53:6 is this, “And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Someone had to die.  The penalty for sins had to be paid.  Rather than leaving us in our sins, helpless and hopeless, God sent his Son Jesus to die in our place.  He bore the wrath of God towards sinners, allowing God to show mercy while remaining just.  Anyone who repents of their and believes the good news of Jesus will be saved.

But people cannot come to Christ in faith if we don’t first tell them who they are apart from Christ.  As much as we would like to, there’s no way to make that less offensive.  

It would be a failure of love to tell someone that they’re a sinner and not give them the hope of the gospel.  It is equally a failure of love to tell someone that God loves them without telling the the truth about their own sinfulness.  As loving as Philip Yancey sounds when he speaks, he is actually demonstrating hatred towards his neighbors in refusing to tell them the truth about their standing before God.