How We Got Here

Scot McKnight links to this letter from the Presbyterian Church (USA) calling for new way to go forward.

This line sticks out to me:

How we got to this place is less important than how to move forward.

It sticks out to me because I think it misses one of the fundamental facets of change and that is asking the question, “Why are we here?”

A friend told me years ago, “Life is an accumulation of choices.”

And so it is.

We are where we are because of the choices we have made. The PC(USA) is where they are at (as described in the letter, which shows just the tip of the iceberg) because of the choices they have made.

To ignore that history, to refuse to ask how we got here, is to risk charting a course that repeats it.

If we want to be somewhere else, or go somewhere else, we have to make different choices. But until we study the choices we have made, we have no idea which ones to change because we don’t know the choices that got us here.

I liken this dilemma to current discussions about “how to move forward” in fundamentalism.

There are some, it seems, who want to ignore how we got here. They just assume it is right that we are here (wherever “here” is). And so they insist that everyone be “here” and if you are somewhere else it is because you are compromising, or at least in danger of compromise. They insist that any change is evidence of the jettisoning of Scripture. They are unwilling to accept that they may be the ones who have wrongly applied Scripture to the present day. They also fail to recognize that the very people they cite as authorities and patterns did not act this way.

There are others who also want to ignore how we got here. They just assume it is wrong that we are here (wherever “here” is). And so they insist that you must change, that if you continue to be “here” you are legalistic, uninterested in unity (whatever that is), and unwilling to obey God.

For some, their history is too short because it only starts 30-40 years ago. For some, their history is too short because it only starts 3-4 years ago.

I believe the way forward has to include a history that started 2000 years ago, and includes the events of the last century where scriptural doctrine came under attack. We have to understand the battles that were fought then against the present day situation now.

We have to return to the authority of Scripture rather than the authority of tradition.

I am reminded of the line by Brother G. I. Barber in his sermon on Hairology: “As fundamentalists, we know this is right because this is the way we have always done it.”

When you hear him say it, it is hilarious.

When you see people practice it, it is heartbreaking.

I wrote recently of failure on the part of some to take seriously the need to study the Scripture. They return only to their own recent history and in so doing, affirm that “How we got here is less important.”

I think we need a return to the authority of Scripture in practice, not just in word.

A Few Late-Night Thoughts on Evangelism

My friend Dave, in his usual way, cuts through the stuff pretty succinctly in this post which, to my way of thinking, is essentially about evangelism.

In it, he talks briefly of those who want to become experts on what other people believe. In my conclusion, we end up with people who know a whole lot about other religions, and don’t know any people who actually practice (or claim to practice) those other religions.

He closes with this:

The best apologetic is to know the Word of God well and simply dialogue with people who need Christ. What do they believe? Not in the sense of what most Christians "believe" on paper ... but what do they really believe in their hearts, about the world, themselves, where they've come from, and where they're going?

Perhaps if we want to know what people believe, we should not read books; we should go ask people.

Of course that requires getting out and talking to people. And that takes some boldness. And that’s why we read books about what other people believe. It’s easier.

I am increasingly skeptical about the value of knowing more about someone’s religion than they know. Of course, I think it helps to know about other religions. But how is my evangelism helped by knowing more than the other guy knows about what he is supposed to believe? Do I really need to refute something he doesn’t believe anyway?

Perhaps if we just go ask a few questions and then listen a little while, we can learn what we need to know about what other people believe, and then know how to point them to Jesus.

What I Was Taught

I recently saw someone applying Romans 16:17 using the claim, “That’s not what I was taught.”

The problem is that this surely well-meaning person has failed to do adequate exegesis on the passage itself. You see Romans 16:17 has nothing to do with what you or I were taught. It rather refers what the Romans were taught by the apostolic authority. And it doesn’t even really refer to all that the Romans were taught, but rather that part of the teaching that causes dissensions and hindrances. These, I believe, have very specific meanings that do not include what Brother So-and-So said.

In other words, the “what” of the “what you were taught” refers to apostolic teaching, not your Sunday School class, or your long time pastor, or your mentor, or your favorite blog (not even if it’s this one).

There is real confusion on the part of many as to what Romans 16:17 is teaching, and how it should be applied.

There appears to be some real resistance on the part of some to do real work on the text. Instead they jump to inherited application without much regard for what Paul actually said.

This, friends, is dangerous because it removes the authority of Scripture and substitutes it for the authority of tradition, even well-intended tradition.

One relatively prolific blogger, when asked to offer some substantive interaction with these types of passages begged off, claiming that he did not have the time to do such work.

Another person recently wrote an article posing the question of whether or not he should apologize for actions his church took more than fifty years ago.

Absurdity of the question aside, it misses the point because the reference point used was not the Scripture, but rather the actions of a church more than 1900 years removed from the apostolic authority.

As people of the book, we must be serious about what the book says.

We would do well to give Romans 16:17-18 more thoughtful interaction, such as Dave Doran did at the recent Preserving the Truth Conference where he dealt with this passage very carefully.

We must also recognize that there are various difficulties of application. We should stop short of claiming that those who disagree with our application (however well-intended it may be) are disagreeing with the Bible.

Words in Weird Places

I was reading about a new cell phone I am thinking about getting. One person who owns it had the following to say about it:

The unit uses some weird propitiatory USB connector

It has a USB connector that satisfies the wrath of God?

That could be an attack on the gospel.

It’s more likely a guy who doesn’t know how to spell proprietary.

On Preaching

What the Bible itself teaches often differs considerably from the ways one uses the Bible to teach.*

How true it is that the Bible, for many, is a prop for a pet point. Preachers often run to texts because they seem to support a notion that they have already decided they want to preach. This is a dangerous mishandling of the Word of God.

I was reminded of this a while back when I was studying Romans 14. Many people run to Romans 14 in order to defend certain positions that they hold on "debatable practices."

While Romans 14 may give principles about how to make decisions, that is not really the point of the text. The point of Romans 14 is about how living sacrifices (cf. 12:1) relate to people in the body of Christ who view God-honoring things differently than they do.

So in preaching Romans 14, we must preach primarily about relationships, not about decision making. Decision-making is a key biblical concern, and Romans 14 certainly helps us in our thinking on that topic, but it is secondary in Romans 14.

As a preacher, to preach is to stand up and proclaim what God has said. Therefore, we must be careful to say what God has actually said. We must make the point of the message the same as the point of the text. This is the most basic definition of expository preaching.

Along the way, we may deal with implications, sub points, side points, assumptions built in to the main point, and like material. But we should be careful not to preach a side point as a main point.

Where there might be an exception is when a text is used for an extended series. In subsequent messages, a side point may be the main point of that particular message, but even in these cases, it must be conscientiously and constantly tied back into the main point.

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*David C. Deuel, “Expository Preaching from Old Testament Narrative,” in Rediscovering Expository Preaching: Balancing the Science and Art of Biblical Exposition (by John F. MacArthur Jr. and The Master’s Seminary Faculty; edited by Richard L. Mayhue; Dallas: Word, 1992), p. 285.