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.  

  

What Jesus Said to a 1st Century Group of Heresy Hunters

A couple of weeks ago two of the Southern Baptist Convention’s biggest celebrities, Beth Moore and Perry Noble, both wrote blog articles aimed at silencing their critics. In Noble's case the criticisms were in response to his changing of the Ten Commandments to the Ten Promises, along with some outright false information that God supposedly told him to say in the NewSpring Church Christmas Eve service. Moore was responding to a tweet a young woman had sent out labeling her as a false teacher.

Moore used the term "heresy hunters" in her article, a standard tactic of those in the seeker-sensitive and charismatic movements to turn the "critics" calling them to abandon aberrant teaching into the bad guys. Both Moore and Noble did an excellent job of drumming up sympathy for themselves, playing the victim, and setting themselves up as the bold heroes who won't back down in the face of relentless persecution. 

Moore even accused the woman who called her a false teacher, and heresy hunters in general, of being unChristlike. One of the many oddities of the modern American church is that super-celebrities like Moore and Noble won't say a negative word about anything or anyone, no matter how blatant the false teaching, but will question the salvation of those who dare call false teaching false. Many before me have noted the hypocrisy of mean-spirited accusations made against the supposedly mean-spirited critics, but that's a topic for another day. 

The question I want to examine today is this: what would Jesus say to the so-called heresy hunters? I think Revelation 2:1-7 gives us a pretty good idea.

In Revelation 2-3 Jesus spoke to seven churches. These were real churches in real history, and the words of Revelation are directly from the mouth of our Lord. Generally speaking, the seven messages follow a pattern of Jesus introducing himself, commending the church for what they were doing well, criticizing the church for an area where they were failing, commanding the church to do something, and closing with a promise. The church in Laodicea received no commendation, as a careful reading of the text reveals that there were no genuine believers in that church. The churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia received no criticism as they were suffering well in the face of intense persecution.  

The first of the seven messages was delivered to the church in Ephesus. It reads:

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. - Revelation 2:1-7 (ESV)

There's a lot here, but I want to focus today on Jesus' commendations and criticism.

Commendations

• their works
• their toil
• their patient endurance
• that they could not bear with those who were evil
• that they tested those who claimed to be apostles and were not
• that they were enduring patiently and bearing up for Christ's sake, and had not grown weary
• that they hated the works of the Nicolaitans, which Jesus also hated

Criticism

• they had abandoned the love they had at first

Jesus seemed quite pleased that in addition their faithful work for the Kingdom the Ephesians were testing those who wanted to teach them, and that they hated the works of the Nicolaitans. Can anyone in modern American evangelicalism conceive of Jesus hating something? Approving of those who hate something? Not much is known about the Nicolaitans, but it is believed that they were antinomians in the truest sense of the word, engaging in unrestrained pursuit of pleasure, including sexual immorality, while claiming to follow Christ. Jesus hated that, and he praised the Ephesians for hating that. He also praised them for testing those who claimed to have his authority and removing from fellowship those who were found to be false.  

So Jesus didn't condemn or criticize the Ephesians for heresy hunting, he praised them for testing the words of men against his unchanging word.  He didn't condemn or criticize the Ephesians for removing the false apostles and evil men from the fellowship.  He didn't call them arrogant, judgmental, unloving, and divisive for doing so.  He praised them for it.  He said keep doing it.  

And it's important to note that Jesus praises them for these things while criticizing their loss of love.  Their testing of the false apostles and hatred of the works of the Nicolaitans are not equated with being unloving.  The problem was internal.  They were doing everything Jesus wanted them to do, but internally a problem had developed.  They had lost their love and were now doing the right things while lacking the right motivation.  They were just going through the motions.

What, then, is the application for the "heresy hunters" in the church today? Here's what I would say:

Deeds and creeds matter. It's common today to hear things like "deeds not creeds" or "doctrine divides; love unites" as if the two are mutually exclusive.  It's actually a false dichotomy. We don't have to choose one or the other; we're commanded to do both. Those who have gifts and a passion for discernment and sound doctrine must serve The Lord wholeheartedly while exercising discernment. We must not become the caricature that people like Beth Moore and Perry Noble make us out to be, sitting on the sidelines pointing out problems while not doing anything ourselves.  

Keep testing the words of those who want to teach the church against the authoritative, sufficient, inerrant word of God. This honors Jesus. This is what we're commanded to do.

Keep identifying those who teach falsely as those who teach falsely. We live in a different age than the early church did. The shepherds of a local flock, usually, only needed to be concerned with the local flock. Today, anyone anywhere in the world can say anything they want and have it reach worldwide audiences in seconds. Our local churches and the church universal need men and women who will not sit idly by while false teachers and Scripture twisters appear on Christian TV/radio, sell their products in Christian bookstores, and fill up our social media feeds and those of our neighbors. Keep testing what people say, and when it doesn’t line up with Scripture, call it out as false teaching.

Don’t abandon the love you had at first. I imagine many people with gifts and passion for discernment, like myself, came from backgrounds of weak or false teaching. Then one day, through the reading of the Word or the preaching of a faithful man, we were exposed to the truth. Our hearts were filled with joy as we discovered the holy, sovereign, merciful God. We finally saw how bad we truly are and how good God is. Over time, the joy faded as we became increasingly dissatisfied with mainstream evangelicalism, as no one else seemed to care about these wonderful discoveries we’d made, and as we begin to see false teaching every where we turned. For some, and I was once here, joy turned to bitterness and anger. Here are some suggestions I think will help us maintain the love we had at first as we continue to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

• Maintain an active devotional life. Every Christian needs to be reading the Word and spending time in prayer and praise every day, but I think this is especially true for those who are listening to podcasts and reading blogs that highlight false teaching.  If we try to do these things apart from an ongoing devotional life with the Lord, disaster waits.  
• Pray for the false teachers. They may be enemies of the gospel, but so were we at one time.  We should fervently pray that God would open their hearts and minds to the truth of the gospel and that they would repent and believe.
• Don’t confuse weak or lost sheep with wolves. Not everyone who shares a Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyer quote, listens to the preaching of Steven Furtick, or attends Bethel in Redding is a wolf.  Some are deceived, some are genuine believers who haven’t been discipled correctly.  They are not our enemies.  They need the gospel and the truth of God’s Word.  Jesus confronted the false teachers; he had compassion on the harassed and helpless people who were like sheep without a shepherd.  The unfortunate reality of our day is that many professing Christians are without a human shepherd pointing them to the Great Shepherd.  We can help, but not if we look at the shepherdless sheep and see wolves.
• Listen to your critics. It’s not very consistent to criticize others for not listening to us and then not listen when they call us arrogant, judgmental, divisive, unloving, etc.  Just because someone makes the accusation doesn’t mean it’s true, but if someone does make the accusation, we must examine our own actions and heart motivations.  
• Criticize a person’s words, not the person. I cringed a little when I saw a high-profile teacher and writer, for whom I have great respect, make a comment about Beth Moore’s outfit recently.  The same goes for graphics comparing someone to a comic book villain or comments about a person’s voice.  It’s cheap, and it’s not Christ-honoring.  We live an age where to criticize a person’s words is considered a personal attack, so we will always sound unloving to some people, but we don’t want to give any unnecessary reasons for them to think that we are.
• Don’t make accusations you’re not prepared to back up. Don’t call someone a false teacher or heretic unless you can show why. In general, I think we should be very slow to label someone a false teacher or heretic unless it is obvious.  When Bill Johnson of Bethel says Christ did his miracles as a man and not as God, yes, call him a Christological heretic.  In many cases though, we’ll have to do a little more work to show how someone’s teaching is inconsistent with the message of Jesus and the Apostles.  It’s a very serious charge to accuse someone of preaching a different gospel or teaching falsely, and unless you yourself can clearly articulate why you think this is case, don’t make the charge.

It’s been so encouraging to see #the15 come together over the last few weeks, to see that there are many people out there across a broad spectrum of backgrounds and theological systems who care about sound doctrine and the rampant error in the church today.  It’s more encouraging to see that some changes are already taking place as a result of #the15 and others not staying silent.  Let us continue to exercise discernment, let us continue to tell the establishment that we won’t sit quietly while they dishonor our Lord, but let us not abandon the love we had at first in the process.  Keep fighting the good fight in the love of our Lord.