When we replace prudence with expediency …
We lose our moral witness.
Category: Simple Truth
Those with the Biblical commitment and personal humility needed to actually function together as part of a simple, participatory church in their home or other hospitable local gathering place …
Do.
Those who don’t and can’t make it work in their own lives and home towns, however …
Seem most inclined, regrettably, to write books and blogs – and travel around – telling everyone else how to.
Unfortunately, great has been the wreckage they’ve caused.
Such “organic church” writers and “itinerants” peddle what they themselves don’t do, under a plethora of misleading titles and slogans like:
“Beyond Evangelical,” “Deeper Life” and now “Insurgence” (Frank Viola); “Subversive” and “Red Letter Christians” (Keith Giles); House2House and Apostolic “Workers” (Milt Rodriguez, Jon Zens and Felicity Dale); “Viral Jesus” (Ross Rohde); and “Houses That Change The World” (Wolfgang Simson).
When it comes to them and their mutual promotion networks, be discerning …
Because you can’t get to authentic from phony.
Nor can you get there with their general distain for God’s plenary authority of Scripture as His written Word …
Or their competing, trans-Biblical existential ideologies.
Please hear me:
For the health of God’s people, it’s time for those of us who are actually making simple, participatory churches work in our own lives and home towns – through a firm commitment to the apostolic foundation already laid in Scripture as God’s authoritative written Word – to begin looking towards each other for mutual encouragement.
If we refuse to be discerning and instead continue to look to – and promote – those who peddle other agendas, pretenses and ideologies …
Then their persistent pattern of failed lives and failed churches will continue to be a hindrance to our own churches and what God wants to do among us.
Their bad fruit and inability to make their own books work in their own lives and home towns – or consistently and sustainably anywhere else – should be a clear warning which we all heed …
No matter how deceptively charming and misleadingly enticing they otherwise may seem.
Healthy churches and healthy lives deserve no less.
So-called progressive “Christians” dismiss Christ’s plenary authority of Scripture, seeking instead a Jesus of their own creation …
Who reflects their own sensibilities and insecurities.
Fundamentally, they worship themselves …
Rather than the authentic Christ of Scripture.
The world claims human dignity comes from self determination.
This destroys individual worth, because dignity – when anyone can make it mean anything – means nothing.
In contrast, Scripture says human dignity comes from God …
Who created us in His likeness and image.
This preserves individual worth, because dignity – when it comes from a fixed standard apart from us – is inalienable.
Scripture is God’s word because He inspired it …
Not because it inspires you.
Seriously, it’s good to be inspired …
But Scriptural authority doesn’t depend on you.
“Christian” isolationists commit a special kind of stupid …
When they cloak their cynicism and civic retreat in moral superiority.
Don’t be deceived.
Evil advances when we ignore Christ’s commands to go, serve, and obey in all spheres of life …
Including culture, politics and government.
Let’s not fall prey to contemporary Gnostic ideologies, which reduce Christ’s authority to “spiritual” things only.
Rather, let’s learn to be effective witnesses of His Lordship in all spheres of life …
Including proper, Biblical guardrails on how to do so appropriately.
Christians who are more focused on some Great Escape than the Great Commission …
Got messed up priorities.
Those who reject the absolute justice of God’s wrath …
Never seem to grasp the absolute mercy of His grace.
Real faith affirms both.
Existentialism – “Christian” or otherwise – is just another form of narcissism …
Because it makes each individual’s own perceptions and sensibilities the center of all truth, reality and morality.
Because all truth is God’s truth …
What God reveals – whether in Scripture or through creation – is infallible and inerrant.
Our own interpretations – whether theological or scientific – are not.
Wisdom comes from distinguishing between what God has actually revealed …
Verses what we presume about it or project back onto it.
We seem to have many Christians …
But not many truth tellers.
Over the years, my wife and I have ministered to literally thousands of individuals trapped in life-controlling bondage.
Addiction, sexual perversion, gender confusion, abuse, violence, despair, chronic homelessness …
We’ve been there helping others, up close and personal.
In the jail, in the woods, in the ‘hood and in other places where polite society seldom goes …
And seen God redeem many lives.
We have yet, however, to meet anyone who’s there simply because of poverty or racism.
Although those are real issues, they are more often symptoms than root causes.
For the vast majority, the key issues go back to dysfunctional upbringings due to dysfunctional or absent fathers …
Often affecting multiple generations.
Although the power of the Cross can heal individual wounds …
Without restored fatherhood, there’s not much else a nation as a whole can do to actually prevent most social ills.
Spiritual narcissism in pursuit of significance …
Inevitably leads to dead ends.
Godly unity isn’t about tolerating those who deny Biblical authority …
But calling them to repent of it.
If the righteous remain silent …
Nations which elevate public sin over private virtue will not long endure.
When nations forget God:
Liberties orginally adopted to protect virtue become twisted entitlements for sin …
Until liberty itself is lost.
Never underestimate the ability to rationalize evil …
Among “Christians” who create their own Jesus to affirm their own comfort zones.
God’s truth is objective, but He can communicate it subjectively.
Only fools use the latter to deny the former.
Doing for others what they should be doing for themselves …
Is no mercy.
Using others as pawns in the vision, mission or purpose God’s given you …
Never turns out well.
For you or for them.
Although there are mysteries in the Bible, it is not “mystical.”
What God chooses to reveal there – including Himself – is accessible to all who simply repent, embrace His forgiveness, submit to the authority of His word and relate together in healthy local fellowships.
The mystical fringe, however, is driven by their own angst, anxiety and insecurities …
To go “deeper” or “beyond” the simple truths of Scripture by dismissing elementary repentance, basic forgiveness, Biblical authority and functional churches …
Which is why they never seem to find the authentic Christ of Scripture.
Don’t be led astray by them.
Hollow existential ideologies distort Christ and His Word to appease prevailing sensibilities …
And lack actual spiritual power.
Those who claim that the Holy Spirit no longer convicts them of sin because of grace …
Know not grace.
Mercy can be an amazing wellspring of good …
Or a naïve enabler of evil.
Discernment makes all the difference.
Cynicism is often a convenient excuse …
For lazy.
