Beating The Systems
A Plea for Humility in Exegesis
Page 2 of 4
What is a tendency in the professor
will become a heresy in the student.
— Dr. Ferris “Chip” McDaniel
I. Sparring
We called it “sparring.” It was one of the favorite
pastimes on our seminary campus. If you were bored, or simply together with
people who “enjoyed discussing things”, you could bring up a controversial
theological topic and watch them have at it. Often someone would play the
devil’s advocate and needle his friends about their viewpoint. Sometimes
there were people who truly stood on the other side of the question and were
arguing their position from a sincere heart. At times the discussion would
get personal, tempers would flare and personal insults might be exchanged
(though in a “loving” and “Christian” manner), and
the discussion would terminate with the angry parties stalking off, muttering
to themselves how narrow-minded their counterparts were. By dinner time usually
the debaters would have reconciled somewhat, but they’d still be touchy
about their pet theological subject.
Well, we were seminary students, after all. Discussing the minutiae
of Christian theology was bread and butter, light and air to us, much like
it might be to a student in a Jewish Yeshiva. We were being trained for this,
for “accurately handling the word of truth,”[1] for defending the Faith, for making sure that people did
not introduce heresy into the Church or alter her time-honored doctrines and
systems. Fortunately, we were able to remain friends despite our sometimes
violently differing theological viewpoints. But I have found that not to be
the case with many every-day Christians.
Your average Christian layperson, regardless of which flavor of Christianity
he or she belongs to, will often cling to a certain theological viewpoint
without ever having thought through all of the implications of it and they
will defend it viciously, not allowing any flaws to be pointed out in it.
They are the death commandos of their Christian theology, those who would
rather die than be shown that there are any weaknesses in their understanding
of Truth. And it is in a great part to these beloved brothers and sisters
that I am writing.
II. The Problem With Systems
The biggest problem facing the Christian church today are
her internal divisions, most of which arise to some extent from our differing
theological systems. A theological system is the way that a person understands
how the various topics of Scripture fit together into one big picture. As
our systems seek to categorize and explain the Bible and its teachings, we
seek to assemble the various topics of Scripture into a coherent picture,
which is often meant to explain everything.
Before I go any farther here, I want to point out that I am not against
systems. As Dr. Richard Belcher put it, “Whether it is realized or not,
every person has a system of theology.”[2] God has created us in His image, which means in part that
we, like the One who ordered the universe, have an innate desire to order
and catalogue things. This sense of order differs from person to person, but
in the end it will result in our building a system for our theology. Some
know what their system is as it is meticulously built by their reason, block
by block. Others have assimilated various truths and untruths and have formed
them into a loosely-knit system that easily shifts and morphs as they encounter
new truths. Still others don’t even know they have a system, even though
they behave like they do when backed into a corner. We all have it, we all
use it, we all need it to make sense of God’s truth and this universe.
As indispensable as these systems might be to us, there are four dangers
that arise as we use the systems.
- The system can try to explain everything.
- The system can prefer deductive logic over inductive
logic.
- The system can easily become the ultimate authority,
replacing Scripture.
- The system can read its ideas into Scripture rather
than bringing them out of Scripture.
Let’s look at each of these in turn.
A. Trying to Explain Everything
Perhaps the biggest danger in any system is that it will
seek to explain everything in Scripture and in the universe. This is a natural
impulse for us humans, as most of us desire harmony around and within us.
We have tried various ways of achieving this harmony, sometimes trying to
alter our surroundings, sometimes trying to alter ourselves to fit our surroundings.
This desire for harmony is extended to our understanding of Scripture and
so we build constructs that attempt to explain everything. We want answers
for every possible question and if we think we have all the answers we get
proud.
The thing is that there are some things in Scripture that are not meant
to be explained, or that cannot be explained using our human logic. Much of
this lies within the character of God and the way He has chosen to reveal
Truth to us. We’ll deal with this a little later on.
B. Primarily Using Deductive Logic
Because the system tries to explain everything, it will
often use deductive logic rather than inductive logic as its primary form
of construction.
Inductive logic is “reasoning from particular facts or individual
cases to a general conclusion.”[3] In other words we work from the source. We gather
all the evidence, take a careful look at it, and then decide what it means.
This is what the followers of the Inductive Bible Study Method use when they
approach Scripture. The Bible is allowed to say what it will say before
a conclusion is reached. In this case the object studied is the authority
and the person studying the student.
Deductive logic, on the other hand, is “reasoning from a known
principle to an unknown, from the general to the specific, or from a premise
to a logical conclusion.”[4] In other words, we know something to be true, therefore
something similar that we encounter, but are uncertain of, must mean
the same thing. Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the best example of deductive logic,
being an expert on many different things, he is able to deduce the truth about
a person using his expertise. In this approach the person studying the object
is the authority. The object is simply interpreted within a framework that
the expert has already espoused and is not allowed to speak for itself.
Which type of logic is the correct logic for approaching the Scriptures?
Probably the former, because of the fact that when deductive logic is used,
the interpreter becomes the authority. Dr. Brad Mullen’s contention
regarding authority is that “any additional authority supplants the
Truth.”[5] Thus when the interpreter
is the authority, Scripture ceases being the authority. (Oops, am I using
deductive logic here? Well, well, well!)
Now, deductive logic has its place and is often necessary, but when
dealing with the Word of God my contention is that inductive logic should
come first, because when deductive logic is given primacy, the theologian
will often make statements that are not only un-Biblical, they are anti-Biblical.
C. Becoming the Ultimate Authority
As already mentioned above, when the deductive method is
used in constructing the system, the authority in regards to the Truth moves
from the Bible to the system. For that reason when the system is criticized
using passages in the Bible that seem to contradict it, the person who holds
to that system will perceive an attack on the entire integrity of their construct
of truth and they will seek to defend it most vehemently.
The interesting thing is that when the system becomes the ultimate authority,
the people holding to that system will look down on those who only partially
accept it or don’t accept it at all. As an example, at one point my
father was in a dialogue with a man who was an extremely strong proponent
of the Five-Point Calvinistic System of Theology. While discussing that the
Bible does support the idea of a free will in man (which Five-Point Calvinism
denies), the young gentleman haughtily told my father that he had “not
yet understood the doctrine of grace.” It seemed that this man viewed
his understanding of the “doctrine of grace” as some sort of specialized,
Gnostic knowledge that only Five-Point Calvinists could comprehend.
D. Reading Into Scripture
And that brings us to the fourth danger that threatens all
theological systems. When the system is the ultimate authority, then all Bible
passages that contradict (or seem to contradict) the system must be explained
away. The exegete then reads his or her ideas into the Bible, rather than
letting the Bible form or reform his or her ideas.
An example of explaining away passages is how those who hold to eternal
security deal with passages such as Hebrews 6:4-6, which do seem to support
the loss of salvation. Conversely those who hold to a loss of salvation deal
just as badly with passages that seem to support eternal security, such as
John 10:28-29. In either case, the problem passages are not treated fairly
because they could prove the other side’s point.
An example of reading one’s ideas into a passage is the way that
some Christians read I Corinthians 13:8. These verses are used to “prove”
that the miraculous spiritual gifts (such as prophecy, speaking in tongues,
healing, etc.) have already ceased. The passage does say that the tongues
will cease, but gives no direct reference to the time frame, making it an
easy passage to twist one way or the other, depending on one’s preference.
There are many examples of how various theological systems
twist Scripture, and no system is innocent of doing so, though there are some
who are less guilty than others. It is not the scope of this paper to deal
with those failings. Others have written eloquently about these errors in
their various books. My point here is to rather encourage a rethinking of
our individual approaches to Scripture, to understand the necessity for tension
in Scripture, as well as to prompt a constant willingness to allow our systems
to be updated and maintained by the Word of God itself as we gain a deeper
understanding of this one-of-a kind book, rather than allow them to become
stagnant and so detrimental both to ourselves and those around us.
If you are interested in some of the ways that various systems mess
with the Bible, I have listed a summary of some of these in Appendix
A.
III. The Human Factor
Regardless of the variety of theological systems out there
and how well they reflect reality as portrayed in Scripture, there is one
factor that is common to all of them: the human being.
Systems more often end up being a showcase for the prowess humans, rather
than the comprehension of Scripture, because they attempt to offer full explanations
for something that cannot be fathomed this side of Eternity. The simple reason
for that is the human condition. Those of us who have systems that attempt
to explain everything have either forgotten about that or they don’t
take it as seriously as they say they do. There are three factors of the human
condition that need to be addressed: finiteness, depravity, and logic.
A. The Finite Human
I watch a lot of science fiction, mostly because I like
the story lines and sometimes because I like to laugh at those who think they
can solve all the world’s problems with a little bit of technology.[6] One of the ever recurring mantras of sci-fi is the idea
that we as humans have not reached our fullest potential (“We only use
10% of our brains.”[7]) and that we must learn to grow beyond ourselves to become gods and take
our rightful place in the universe.
Theologians do the same thing, except that they take the Bible as their
basis, thinking that their minds can wrap themselves around something that
is vastly larger than themselves.
Let’s face it, we’re finite. We have a beginning. According
to a plain reading Scripture we won’t have an “end” in the
sense that we’ll cease to exist entirely[8], but there will be terminus of life on this small blue
planet.
Our having a beginning sets us apart from God, who is infinite. Scripture
is unequivocal about that. Psalm 90:2 states:
Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
God’s infinity does not only deal with His existing
before everything else, but also with other aspects of His character, such
as His intelligence and wisdom. In a moment of supreme theological wonder,
the Apostle Paul shouts out:
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of
God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.[9]
God Himself says through Isaiah’s pen,
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”[10]
God is far beyond the human mind. He created it after
all and the creation is by necessity inferior to the uncreated Creator, simply
by the fact that it had to be created.
The fact that we are finite dictates the conclusion (deductive logic,
again) that we cannot comprehend the infinite. One picture that we might use
to illustrate this is the medieval cathedral which abounds in Europe. Most
of these were built in the shape of a cross with a steeply sloped roof and
many crenellations and much ornamentation. Because of the immense size and
unusual shape of the cathedral it is impossible for a human standing beside
it to see any more than three or four sides at once. And if you stand far
enough back to do that, you miss out on all the detail on the sides. I will
not even mention that when you’re outside you can’t see the inside
and vice versa. Add to that the subterranean levels found in most cathedrals,
which few people will see, and it becomes clear that we tiny human beings
cannot look at any more than a small portion of this vast building at any
one time.
Now, the more pious builders of the cathedrals meant them to represent
God to an illiterate populace and they do indeed capture a modicum of the
grandeur of the One to whom they are dedicated. But what they perhaps best
captured was a picture of how one person alone cannot see all of God. Standing
at the base of a cathedral is like contemplating God. Just as the human eye
cannot take in any more than a mere fraction of the great building at any
one time, so the human mind cannot apprehend more than the smallest part of
Yahweh. Just the idea of the Three-In-One is enough to blow the mind, not
to mention all other parts of Him!
Transferring this concept to theology – which is the study of
God – and the systems that result from that, due to the finiteness of
the human mind, it is not possible for us to fully explain spiritual realities.
If we seek to put all of the Truth in Scripture under only one large theme[11], we will fall short
and there will always be pieces that don’t fully fit within our chosen
rubric.
If you think me to be crass in saying this, take for example the relatively
small area of Old Testament Theology. This field deals only with what the
Old Testament has to say about God. Gerhard Hassel’s Old Testament
Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate[12] catalogues the various attempts
of many different theologians to distill an overarching theme about God from
the Old Testament. After a very careful study and a listing of the shortcoming
of the various approaches, Hassel concludes:
Our attempt to focus on unresolved crucial problems which
are at the center of the current crisis in OT theology has revealed that there
are basic inadequacies in the current methodologies and approaches.[13]
If that is his conclusion dealing solely with the
Old Testament, which is only a part of overall Scripture, what
happens with the rest of the Bible? The interesting thing is that, as prolific
as Old Testament theologies are, they are eclipsed by the New Testament theologies![14] No one seems to be able to agree
on one overriding principle as to how to order or explain all of Scripture,
which clearly supports the idea of God being like a cathedral.
B. The Depraved Human
Added to this innate finiteness is another aspect of humanity
that few of us like to admit to and that is our depravity. The Calvinist system
makes much of the evil that resides in the human heart, as any system of theology
that takes the Bible seriously should. Scripture minces no words about how
evil we are. Jeremiah dryly remarks:
The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?[15]
Quoting the Old Testament, Paul the apostle writes:
There is none righteous, not even one;
there is none who understands,
there is none who seeks for God;
all have turned aside, together they have become useless;
there is none who does good,
there is not even one.[16]
He then later goes on to write, “[F]or
there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God….”[17]
Most Christians will agree with this assessment. However what we don’t
seem to agree with is the fact that, this side of Eternity we still wrestle
with that fallen nature. Once more Paul so eloquently puts it in his letter
to the Romans:
For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of
flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for
I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I
hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law,
confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one
doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good
dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the
doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice
the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not
want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then
the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.[18]
If Paul of Tarsus, one of the most godly men to have
ever lived, could say something like that, how much more we who struggle to
follow in his footsteps! The depravity clings to us this side of Eternity,
it infests us and fights against God’s Spirit’s changing power.
And the insidious thing is that we often don’t notice when it strikes,
especially when we deal with our theological systems. We think that, because
they deal with the spiritual things, they won’t be tainted by the twistedness
of our fallen nature. This is where we must stop and rethink. We must realize
how permeated we are with sin, how even our moments of highest, most godly
bliss will incorporate a few motives that are not in tune with God’s
will. This includes our understanding of God.
If we stop and honestly examine ourselves we will find that often two
things swing in our building our theology and our defending it. The first
is pride. We have labored hard, we understand the Truth about the One God.
He has revealed Himself to us!
Beware! Duane Garret once very astutely observed, “Nothing is
more harmful to the soul as the notion that my thoughts are God’s thoughts
and that He is on my side.”[19] If we feel that we are the ones who have “eaten
the truth with a spoon”[20], as the Germans put it, then we will view our flawed
system to be God’s one and only tool to explain Truth to the world.
We’ll be trying to squeeze the Bible into our tiny, odd-shaped constructs
and will be shocked to find corners of it poking out in places we don’t
expect.
In addition to pride, we will often draw our significance from the coherence
of our system and our understanding of Scripture through it, rather than from
the God who has made us and redeemed us. If our system is threatened, be it
by another person or by the Word itself, then our very significance will be
threatened and we will fight tooth and nail to keep anything from tearing
this significance away from us. This might account for the death-commandos
of the various systems as they have hung their whole worth on this “correct”
reading of the Bible.
Add to this that God does allow a spiritual blindness to claim
people who have rejected the Light. This is not to say that most systems are
darkness, but any system can lead to darkness if any Light given which
contradicts or alters the system is rejected in favor of the coherency of
the system.[21]
C. The Logical Human
Another area where our humanity surfaces is in how we have
been taught to think. Logic is something that is learned and it clearly differs
from society to society. This is why eastern and western thought processes
so often clash. It is not merely an issue of differing values, but even a
complete difference of how an easterner and a westerner arrive at varying
conclusions when faced with the same problem. A very typical eastern response
to a problem is to ignore it as long as possible, hoping it will go away,
whereas westerners tend to grab the problem by the horns and get rid of it.
Tied in with this is the fact that the Bible is not a western book.
It is an extremely eastern book, middle-eastern to be precise and so
the logic behind its writing is alien to us westerners. We have been brought
up to use Greek logic and Greek thought processes which are highly analytical
and deal mostly with deconstructing an issue and looking at its minutiae before
trying to reassemble it into the big picture. Hence we run afoul such issues
as how to reconcile the free will of man with the absolute sovereignty of
God or the idea that we are eternally secure versus the idea that our actions
do affect our salvation.
The answer here is the Bible was written not by Greeks, but by Hebrews,
who employ a very different system of thought and logic than the Greeks do.
The Hebrews seem to espouse a more holistic thought process in which the statement
of two opposites to make a point is regular. The Hebrews love comparisons.
Their entire poetry is based upon that, comparing similar things, comparing
opposites, expanding on those comparisons. Thus it would only be natural for
a Hebrew to express the deep things of God in statements that might seem paradoxical
to a Greek mindset.
Being trained in western thought, not only in our schools, but also
in our seminaries, we wrestle with questions that did not even exist to the
Hebrew writers of the Bible. It is often our shortcoming that we try to invent
solutions to problems that don’t even really exist in Scripture! We
need to learn to think like the Hebrews when we read the Bible, rather than
using our Greek thought systems.
Now, there is nothing wrong with the Greek system of logic, as a matter
of fact, when used in tandem with the Hebrew system, it is an incredibly powerful
tool, but it remains a man-made thing, just as Hebrew logic is. However, for
some reason, God chose to reveal Himself through Hebrew thought processes
and not through the Greek ones. Perhaps it was because the only way to describe
someone like Himself to us limited, depraved humans was through the concrete
terms and holistic thought processes of the Hebrew mind. Imagine how it would
have been if He’d used the abstract ideas of the Greeks, which are sometimes
so esoteric that the seminary student can’t understand them, much less
the every-day Joe on the street.[22]
When we honestly look at these three aspects of the human
nature, our finiteness, depravity and lack of training in Hebrew thought should
make us extremely humble as we approach Scripture. We must remember that,
regardless of how brilliant we are, we will only apprehend the smallest amount
of who and what God really is and our system of theology must reflect
that. We can’t know it all, at least not this side of Eternity.
IV. The Faith Matrix[23]
In addition to our human short-comings comes the point that
our systems should be based on faith, not on logic. Faith is what really
drives every human being, it is central to his or her life. We base everything
we do and say on certain propositional mores that we hold to be true, things
that usually can’t be fully corroborated by hard facts. I like to call
this group of propositional mores the faith matrix.
The faith matrix of one human being can strongly differ from his or
her beliefs, because we will often say one thing, but do another. It is our
actions that prove what is in our faith matrix and thus our faith matrix will
affect our theological system much more than our mind will, because it is
much more fundamental than our mind.
Often the pride of our system and our finding our security in our system
are an integral part of our faith matrix that we deny. What we truly believe
will manifest itself in the way we respond to threats to our system of theology
or the way that we will act in an every-day situation.
V. Living On the Net
So what should our systems be like? This is a difficult
question to answer, mostly because there are no final answers. I would like
to use a word picture to suggest how we should view our theological system.
Most of us think of our system as a strong structure, based on the solid
rock of Biblical teaching. It will withstand anything that the winds of doubt
can send at it. But what happens when the supposedly so solid bedrock shifts,
because our understanding of Scripture deepens? The concrete structure begins
to collapse in on itself, because it was only built to withstand outside effects,
not fundamental ones.
Perhaps a better image of a system that is based solely on Scripture
is that of a round chasm. You might say that the chasm is the unknown. On
every side of this deep cleft are various eyelets, axiomatic truths that are
drilled deep into the bedrock of truth. Anchored to these eyelets are heavy
steel cables that span the chasm, crisscrossing one another and forming a
strong, secure mesh that can support enormous amounts of weight. The net is
flexible, but it is still extremely safe, because if the tension in one strand
lessens, the tension in another one will tighten, keeping the entire construct
stable.
This picture is what our theologies should look like. We must live on
the net itself, understanding that many of the axiomatic truths in Scripture
are diametrically opposed from one another and it is the tension between the
two that makes them work! Take, for example, the fact that we are utterly
depraved. At the same time we are saved and completely holy. God is utterly
sovereign, in control of every facet of all creation, and yet we have a completely
free will. God is completely just and must punish sin, but He is also completely
merciful and will forgive those who come to Him. God is Three and yet He is
One. There are many more examples like this in Scripture and it is precisely
the tension that exists between these points that keeps the system secure.
Most theological systems will place their buildings on a given eyelet
and shoot at everyone else who has built theirs on another eyelet. Take here,
for example, the eternally sparring Calvinists and Arminians. They shoot at
each other across the chasm, not realizing that there is Truth in both positions
and that it is precisely that tension that makes their systems secure.
Now, the fact that this construct hangs over a chasm is another important
part of the picture. God does not reveal everything. To put that in layman’s
terms, that would be like trying to download the FBI’s entire fingerprint
files on to a single floppy disk. It just won’t work. There isn’t
enough space to store all the information! God is so big, so vast that we
can’t know everything, but He still gives us enough to be secure
– the strands crossing the chasm of the unknown.
And that is where we must allow mystery to remain mystery. Trying to
peer behind every curtain, to ascertain all the truths is a very human trait,
but it is precisely in the mystery of God that the most worship abounds. Maybe
the mystics have a point in trying to experience God. They are content to
let the mystery be what it is, while we scholars stumble around in God’s
china shop, clumsily knocking over His wonderful truths, shattering them at
times, and not really stopping to marvel at the beauty of the way they are
put together, only looking at the fine lines etched into the whole or at the
shards on the floor, not comprehending the entire picture.
That said, one lesson that can be drawn from this image is that Truth
is often, but not always, found in the middle. Perhaps it is so in the case
of God’s sovereignty and the free will of man, or in the melding of
the symbolism and the spiritual effect of the Eucharist. At other times the
answer is found on a completely different plain, one that the human mind cannot
even conceive. Who would have thought that God could satisfy both His mercy
and His justice through His grace? What human could have conceived of a salvation
that would have resulted from God dying for us? That is beyond all
human scope and the only result it can engender is abject humility and soaring
worship.
VI. Knowing the Center
And that is where it all focuses: on God, the Three-In-One,
Himself. He is the center of Scripture and without Jesus Christ all that is
written in that magnificent book is null and void. If you don’t know
Jesus then your exegesis will be flawed, because as much as the Bible
is the written Word of God, Jesus Christ is the spoken Word of God,
the living Word of God. Knowing Him is all and truly knowing Him will
affect our whole being, right down to our faith matrix!
Now, note that this knowledge is not merely in our head. This is where
the weakness of the English language becomes apparent, because we have no
term to directly convey the Hebrew concept of yadah, that deep, experiential
knowledge that describes even the deepest, most intimate relationship between
a husband and wife. This knowledge encompasses every part of our being, from
our mind, will and emotions to our physical self. It supremely impacts our
faith matrix, filling it with love, facts, and experience of Christ Himself,
and so it will impact our theological system in a way that we could never
even dream possible.
It is precisely our relationship to Him and our respect and love for
Him that will cause us to act differently towards those who don’t see
everything the same way we do. We will learn to love our fellow Christians
in such a way that we can allow opinions to remain opinions and we will not
force them on others. We will learn to gently, lovingly pass on the Truth.
This may still hurt our brothers and sisters sometimes, but that can be also
necessary.
As knowing the center is a whole-being thing, it is immensely practical,
especially when dealing with those who do not believe everything just the
way we do. There are basically two things that you can do to know the center
better. First, you protect yourself and, second, you practice love toward
your brother or sister in Christ.
A. Protect Yourself
Solomon put it best in Proverbs 4:23: “Above all
else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”[24] Guarding one’s heart
is a constant occupation, watching what we put into it so that what comes
out of it is good, too. The old computer term GIGO (Garbage In – Garbage
Out) applies quite well here.
How do we guard our hearts? First of all we need to know what we believe
and why we believe it. There are too many people out there who believe things
because their pastor said so and/or because they liked the way something sounded
to them. More often than not these people know the what, but not the why.
Learning the why takes time and it can sometimes end up being rather upsetting,
because it might turn up some major flaws within our thinking and may have
to cause us to substantially revise our system.
One thing must be stressed here: There are certain aspects to true Christian
theology that must not be compromised. There is only One God, who is
also Three. This God became an historical man, Jesus of Nazereth, called the
Christ. He lived an exemplary life on this earth, died on the cross for our
sins and rose again on the third day. He ascended into heaven where He sits
at the right hand of God the Father. Anyone who accepts that Jesus
died for their sins and rose again and confesses this (whether in prayer or
otherwise) is saved[25] and this salvation
will show itself through a life that is pleasing to the principles God set
forth in His Word[26], which is the
ultimate measure of Truth on this earth. Every true Christian should
be able to agree with these core values. Other things can be debated.
As said above our number one tool in all of this is the Word of God,
all 66 books of the Bible. It is not our logic, not our training, but the
Ancient Words past down to us through the Ages. It is very clear in II Timothy
3:16-17.
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so
that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Anyone who brings any knowledge beyond what is contained
within the Word of God and anyone who tries to limit it are not to be trusted,
regardless of what tools they use to justify their positions. Paul has a lot
to say about such teachers and most of what he says is much more harsh than
any of us would dare to say nowadays, but in the end he always comes back
to the same thing. Take Philippians 3:2-3 as an example:
Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware
of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who
worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence
in the flesh.
After using some very strong terms for those who did
not teach in accordance with what he taught, Paul points us to what is important,
where our confidence must lie: in Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit, not in
our earthly being, of which our logic is a part. There is much more at stake
here than simply having wrong teachings though, as he warns the Colossians:
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting
in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions
he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not
holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held
together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.[27]
Having wrong teachings keeps us from attaining what
God wants us to reach, which is becoming more like Christ. It is interesting
that Paul points out the “fleshly mind” here as something that needs
to be avoided. This includes a logic that is not constantly infused with the
Truth as found in the Word of God and which espouses worldly systems of thought
to explain what is beyond the grasp of one who lives in this mortal realm.[28]
Another highly important quality of self-protection is the humility
of mind that comes from constantly being in the presence of God and knowing
that we can’t understand it all. We must be drawing our worth from who
we are in Christ and not from the ideas that form in our heads. That way if
they’re shot down we won’t react angrily, but will simply pick up
the pieces and try to find what we need to change to be more in line with Scripture.
If we simply and honestly hold to this point of view, then we have already won
half the battle.
B. Practice Love
Once we are secure in our knowledge of who we are, what we
believe, and why we believe it, we can turn outward to those around us and fulfill
Christ’s greatest commandment to us: “This is My commandment, that
you love one another, just as I have loved you.”[29] Many years later
the Apostle John expounds on this in his first letter.
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because
we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates
his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life
abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and
we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's
goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how
does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word
or with tongue, but in deed and truth.[30]
Laying down our lives for our brothers, includes putting
ourselves in a vulnerable position that can often result in our Christian siblings
severely wounding our pride and sense of self-worth when it comes time to point
out the error of their ways. No one ever said that loving someone would be easy.
As a matter of fact it’s a whole lot harder than simply tolerating them
Living on the net is much harder than living in a rigid structure and
those who don’t dare to hold to the Word and the Word alone often can’t
understand what makes those of us who live on the net so secure. We need to
help them come out of their little constructs and see the true freedom that
there is in a flexible system of theology that puts God above the system. True
freedom is scary and I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to attempt
it. But if we truly love our brothers and sisters, we’ll sacrifice
time, energy, money, self-worth, and everything else to help set them free.
This will often involve confronting that person and Paul gives guidelines
for that in the book of Galatians.
Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who
are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking
to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.[31]
There are two key thoughts here: first of all is the
spirit in which we must approach the situation and that is one of gentleness.
We may want to ram the point home, because we are right and we know
it! However, a gentle word is more often received than a harsh one, even
by someone who doesn’t quite see things their own way. So we must learn
to temper the way we present the Truth to those who are partially blinded from
it by their own logic and concrete walls.
The second thing is what I mentioned in the previous point. Remember that
we are fallible and that even our understanding of the Truth is incomplete.
It is easy to be tempted by the relative security of a solid theological structure
over the sometimes disconcerting movement of the net. As a matter of fact we
sometimes think we’re living and operating on the net, but are really
now living in our little concrete structure on one of the eyelets. Our personal
response to Truths that come along that differ from our understanding of Scripture
can help us gauge where we’re at.
Paul gives a very good example of this when he confronts fellow Apostle
Peter in Galatians 2:11-14. While visiting with Paul, Peter began to exhibit
some un-Christian attitudes and actions towards the Gentile believers when other
Jewish believers showed up. Peter’s actions arose from a human teaching
not arising from Scripture, but from the extensions to Scripture that certain
Christians who had come from the sect of the Pharisees had introduced into the
Church. It took Paul standing up publicly and denouncing Peter’s
actions to bring things back on track. From what we know of Peter, I believe
that he was duly chastised and changed his ways, but it is interesting how pernicious
such teachings can be especially if we try to bow to the “weaker brother”
and make him feel comfortable. If it’s true, it’s true regardless
of how it offends someone who doesn’t want to accept it. We don’t
have to apologize for the Truth, we just have to present it as a surgeon wielding
a scalpel rather than a warrior swinging a sword. And this takes practice –
lots of practice.
VII. Where Do We Go From Here?
You may have noticed that the key concept of “living
on the net” is not necessarily found in so many words in Scripture. I
will admit to that and I view this as only the beginning to this idea. It is
fascinating and it has broad applications, but it also has its dangers. As with
any teaching there may be seeds of heresy within this one. I am not advocating
a free-for-all bashing of all theological systems, nor am I suggesting that
my way is the only right way. I know my personal failings and my lack of understanding
of the Cosmic Order much too well to say that. The key to everything is that
we need to be humble in the way we approach the Unseen and keep our study
of it to the one place and the one authority that has anything to say about
the Eternal World – the Holy Bible.
That said, all theological systems that are even remotely based on the
Bible will have some Truth in them somewhere, simply because they have
taken the Bible as their basis. This Truth can be as obvious as marble walls
in a building, or more hidden like gold in a gravel bank. Sometimes the system
even makes the Truth found in it as worthless as rice kernels strewn in a puddle
of motor oil, but the Truth is still there.
For that reason let’s respect our Christian brothers and sisters
and love them with all their flaws and weaknesses. Let’s remember our
own limitations and that our true worth comes not from our system of theology
but from the fact that we are Children of the One Living God who has chosen
us despite ourselves and has adopted us into His Holy Family.
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present
you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy –
to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through
Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.[32]
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