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How Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism Have Invented and Continue to Reinvent A Socially Acceptable Impostor and Placebo Christianity
Most of you reading know how offended someone might become if you question his Christianity. Professing Christians want to keep Christian identity fluid. They can define what a Christian is or isn’t based upon their innermost concept of self without conforming to any established definition. If you perceive yourself to be a Christian, your claim should be accepted without imposed external requirements.
Christianity isn’t popular. Jesus said it wasn’t. It isn’t popular because of what it is, so there are choices. One, believe Christianity and suffer. Two, don’t believe Christianity and don’t suffer for it. Three, change Christianity into a Christianity where you will not suffer.
What do Christians suffer for? The world hates Christianity, because it is light. It is different than the world. To change Christianity, you would need to remove the differences. Make a Christianity with the parts that people might like and leave out the parts that people would not like. However, much, if not most, of Christianity is of disliked components.
The World Chooses What It Doesn’t Like
Christians don’t choose what the world doesn’t like. As you read scripture, you can see that philosophies or practices in the world arise that clash with Christianity, and that becomes what is disliked in Christianity. The world chooses what it doesn’t like about Christianity and that becomes something Christians have to react to. In Corinth, the bodily resurrection was disliked and professing Christians started denying it or attempting to blend a denial of bodily resurrection with the rest of Christianity. That doesn’t mean that bodily resurrection is what causes Americans today to hate Christianity. I don’t find that to be a particularly hated aspect of Christianity right now. so it’s easy to be pro bodily resurrection. Who wouldn’t want to get a new body? The world decides what it doesn’t like about Christians and Christianity and that might change in succeeding areas and in various locations.
Caesar worship isn’t in vogue, but it was a problem for Christians in Paul’s day. There will always be a problem in the world with Jesus as Lord, but Caesar was the competition. The world has its agenda and Christians will conflict with it.
The history of liberalism in the United States relates to what is unpopular or unacceptable in the academy. Naturalism or rationalism became fashionable. It wasn’t the truth unless it had historical documentation of a certain quality. Threatened by unemployment or some kind of intellectual embarrassment, professing Christians bridged the gap between the Bible and naturalism to the degree necessary to remain in the academy. It isn’t actually possible, but they still did it, and this became a new kind of Christianity, a blended form. In general if you didn’t take liberal Christianity or the new harmonization with liberalism, you weren’t accepted. Original Christian positions separated to new institutions, probably accepting lower salaries and less credibility.
Liberalism didn’t translate to the pews of churches. The unpopularity was in the narrower arena of academia. Liberalism was unpopular with church members, but it trickled down and eroded churches over time. The leadership trained by liberal institutions slowly took down the churches of various denominations. False beliefs became more acceptable through various means. If churches stayed true to scripture, they did it by remaining separate and receiving leadership separate from liberalism and blended Christianity.
Was and is blended Christianity, a Christianity harmonized to varying degrees with liberalism or other alterations of the Bible, actually Christianity? Are the various “Christianities” equal or should they be accepted in a form of Christianity fluidity?
The Biggest Clash with Christianity Is In and With the Culture
The biggest clash between the world and Christianity comes in the culture or in the practice of Christianity. The world wants to do what it wants to do without judgment. Christianity clashes with the culture. When you read the Bible, the earliest manifestation of the ungodly line is represented by Lamech’s bigamy. He changed the definition of marriage. He wasn’t advocating for polytheism, but disobeying God’s original teaching on marriage. He wanted two wives, not just the one required by God.
Today’s Lamech might be acceptable because he hasn’t maybe embraced false doctrine. Or has he embraced false doctrine? If you aren’t doing what God says, He isn’t God to you. You don’t get to make up new definitions and self-identify in a different way and still believe in the true God. The third way above, where blended Christianity is Christianity, isn’t true. It might be accepted as true, and then the acceptance itself accepted, but God doesn’t accept it. Or perhaps you could just wait and find out.
The world wants to use whatever language it wants without judgment. It wants to dress or undress like it wants. The world in general operates according to fleshly lust and this characterizes its music, its entertainment, and its recreation. Just like professors conceded to liberalism in academia, churches capitulated to the culture. The women in churches of New Testament times started taking on the features of the new Roman woman. The Apostle Paul sees the world creeping into the church with immodestly or ostentatiously dressed, independent, loose women taking authority for themselves. He goes back to creation order in 1 Timothy 2 to bring the church back in line and commands Timothy to eradicate these distortions with all authority. The same movement has occurred in the United States and now Christians have accepted the new American woman, except they say either scripture doesn’t judge this innovation or it’s a non-essential, non separating issue, not a matter of concern to Christian fellowship.
Christians stick out the most in the world because of their discord with the culture. The easiest way to popularize Christianity is to eliminate the cultural differences, to blend Christianity with society. This has been done now in and by evangelicalism and fundamentalism. They have bifurcated Christian doctrine from Christian practice. The doctrinal positions are elevated to a distant priority from the behavior of Christianity, except where the lifestyle could coexist with the culture. Christianity can still be Christianity and also acceptable to the world.
Several Christian leaders observed the possibility of the coordination of social justice with Christian living. Christians could practice Christianity with social justice and appropriate worldly acceptance. The Washington Post could like that Christianity. It’s also a gospel the world might advocate.
Change in Practice Also Changes Doctrine
The difference in culture between the world and Christians doesn’t quarantine itself from doctrine. God is One and all His truth is One. You can’t pick off Christian practice, leaving doctrine without damage, just like you can’t pick and choose favored attributes of God. If you eliminate one attribute of God, He isn’t Who He is anymore. He is a different God.
If you allow the world to influence the music accepted in churches for worship, God becomes how you worship. Music hasn’t been amoral and isn’t amoral. It has meaning. Your God will be shaped to the music you offer Him. Then when God accepts fleshly lust, the worshiper becomes lustful. The priestesses of Diana or Artemis in Ephesus were prostitutes, holy to their god.
Like the other cultural issues, where Christians have adapted to the world, to take away the unpopularity and the conflict, evangelicalism and fundamentalism has relegated cultural distinctions to non-essentials. In a very noticeable way, now these changes are also changing doctrine. You can’t segregate practice from doctrine in a way that will keep doctrine pure. The two are inexorably connected, mutually inclusive.
Jesus is Lord. Apostates deny the Lord who bought them (2 Pet 2:1). They don’t want a boss. Rebellion most characterizes the world’s problem with God. They might be fine to acknowledge Him if He would leave them alone. It is a volitional problem. The conflict in will between the world and God finds itself most in the culture. Christianity is different than the world. When it is the same as the world, is it still Christianity? Is it really still the same God? I’m saying and wanting to prove to you, no, it isn’t.
This is where I see Christian fluidity preceding something like gender fluidity. The latter proceeds from the former. You can’t be the Christian you imagine in your innermost being, self-identifying as a doctrinal Christian and not a practical one. There is a doctrinal problem still, even if you don’t recognize it. This is a different gospel that doesn’t really repent, even if it claims the word, repent.
What isn’t acceptable today in Christianity with the compliance of evangelicalism and fundamentalism is Christianity. Christianity is a whole, not just parts. You can’t take out its parts and have it still be Christianity. It has become for people to judge when it has dipped below the level of being Christian. Now if you don’t advocate for dismissing parts of Christianity, you aren’t a Christian. Toleration has become a major tenet along with the new accompanying doctrines. Unity is now agreeing to disagree.
If Christianity, the only Christianity, is to be preserved and then propagated, men are going to have to stand against the blending or capitulation I’ve described — all of it. First, they need to understand it. If they haven’t agreed to it, they need to admit that they had it wrong before. They can’t get along. I’m asking you to join me in this. We need men who will do this and stop sitting on their hands, acting like none of it matters, minding their own business. If you read this and it sounds true, or you find yourself being convinced, at least admit in public that you are thinking about it and are willing to consider it.
Men are afraid to today of sticking out. Like the men in the growing liberalism of old, they had to go outside the camp and lose something. Be willing to lose what Paul says is loss. Giving up loss is acceptable. Count gain as loss and loss as gain. Go back to square one, whatever it might mean to your career or your perceived success for the sake of the truth.
The Trip to Europe Continued (Fourteenth Post In Total)
One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen
Some of what we did on Sunday, June 10, still in Scotland, I included in the very first part above. We attended a morning service at Glenrothes Free Baptist Church in the morning and ate lunch at the Gleasons in the afternoon. Pastor Jon Gleason pastors the church in Glenrothes. He has commented here at the blog, as I at his. They were very gracious hosts. I also talked about the church we attended on Sunday night, Leith Free Church, very close to where we stayed.
I got up early with a few purposes in mind. I needed to take public transportation to pick up a rental car from the airport. I left from The Shore in Leith, where we were staying for a fifty minute bus ride on Skylink 200 to the Edinburgh Airport Enterprise.
I disembarked at the bus stop, walked a little ways to the Enterprise, picked up the car, and drove back to The Shore and picked up my family. Thankfully, this would be my last time of driving on the left side of the road, the right side of the car, and a manual transmission with my left hand. The road to Glenrothes crosses The New Forth Road Bridge over the Firth of Forth.
Later that afternoon we took a roundabout trip and stopped briefly at field of the Battle of Bannockburn, perhaps the most important battle in Scottish history, where Robert the Bruce made his claim to fame. We also drove by Stirling Castle.
That night after the church service, the girls stayed back at the flat, and my wife and I took a walk further east in Leith to see the Britannia, the long time royal yacht of Queen Elizabeth II. Right in front of the large boat is a gigantic three story mall that was open, but almost empty that Sunday night after church. We didn’t take time for a tour while we were there, but you get a pretty good view on the top floor outside porch area of the mall.
The next morning we would leave very early from the U.K. to fly to Italy. This was our second leg of this journey and it was a bit of a mystery. I had never flown overseas. Now we would fly from a foreign country to another foreign country. The idea was that we would drive to the airport in the rental car, return it to the Enterprise, and walk into the airport. From there, we would figure out all that we needed to do. It would be an interesting and exciting time.
Availability for Meetings
Dear brethren,
You can see messages I have preached (relatively) recently, as well as things taught, here. The “Most Important Message” is an illustration of evangelistic preaching (unfortunately, only the first part is live at this point), while several classes have parts of them live here, here, and here (more coming, Lord willing.)
A Post Among a Series of Posts by John MacArthur about Social Justice and the Gospel
John MacArthur is writing a series dealing with social justice and the gospel (parts one, two, three, and four so far), and I’m focusing primarily on one of them, part three, which his organization calls part two.
An emphasis on social justice and tying that to the gospel has invaded evangelicalism. MacArthur says that he could see it coming, but now is when he’s saying something about it. I’m happy he is saying something about it.
Some would say, look, see what we’ve been saying, MacArthur deals with important subjects, while independent fundamental Baptists talk about dress, music, and alcohol. He’s doing something about the gospel. As anyone reading here knows, we also deal with the gospel here, including where independent Baptists go wrong on it. I’ve written a lot on it and our Word of Truth Conference has been on the gospel for the last three years, and will be about it this year too.
MacArthur has to deal with the social gospel as related to the gospel because it is affecting those with whom he affiliates. I wouldn’t need to deal with it at my church at all. That’s been clear. In fact, because related subjects, ones that folks would say have nothing to do with the gospel, were ignored, he’s now confronting a subject such as this.
Evangelicals for awhile have pandered to various constituencies in order to get their crowds. They would say that it’s been important so that they could reach these people with the gospel. This is mainstream evangelicalism. They have also kept kicking issues down the road, treating them like their not gospel issues, and then they hit them right in the face as related to the gospel. Evangelicals have been wrong on this. This is not something MacArthur says. He talks about all this like he’s had no problem, has had nothing to do with the problem, which isn’t true. He’s a part of evangelicalism and part of the problem.
Before I write more, I want to say that I really like what MacArthur has written in his part three. It’s worth reading for anyone and important to understand. I agree with MacArthur in what he’s written. I agree with most of the series. I’m on his side in what he is writing. A few things he writes are not exactly right, but I’m with him on the crux of everything that he writes in this series. He’s helpful. It’s sad what has happened to evangelicalism.
MacArthur treats several issues that he relates to the gospel. In his first paragraph, he writes:
Evangelicals as a group have shown an unsettling willingness to compromise or unnecessarily obfuscate all kinds of issues where Scripture has spoken plainly and without ambiguity.
The essence of this statement I support, except for one part, that I believe haunts evangelicalism and still MacArthur. This is one of those aspects where he’s “not exactly right,” to put it kindly. His statement implies that some of scripture is not plain and that some of it is ambiguous. This really is where MacArthur and evangelicals get themselves in trouble and they open the door for denial of the truth and compromise of God’s will. Certain teaching and application of scripture is disobeyed, because MacArthur and others like him give their listeners the strong impression that a good number of subjects that have been clear in the past to Christians, really are not.
I know MacArthur would confess to support the historic doctrine of perspecuity. If pushed, he only goes so far as to support perspecuity as it relates to gospel related subjects. He is saying that the Bible does have plain and non-ambiguous statements, but with his implication that it has some that are not plain and are not ambiguous, he opens the door for professing Christians to do what they want, even on the subjects that he addresses.
Nevertheless, MacArthur says the truth about certain subjects, the ones that he says are plain and without ambiguity. From my reading through the years, with him and some of his associates, the subjects that are without ambiguity are the ones he says are without ambiguity. However, certain subjects have not been with ambiguity until in the last century, and those are ones that MacArthur himself says are ambiguous. His capitulation on some of those have led to many of the issues that he’s concerned about, like the strange fire of Charismaticism, the pragmatism everywhere in evangelicalism, and the role reversal.
The list of plain doctrines or practices MacArthur addresses in the article (part three) and with which I agree with him are the following:
- Women Preachers
- Marriage Role Reversal
- Accepted Fornication
- Borrowing from Pop Culture for Worship and Church Growth
- Worldly Methods
- Seeker Sensitive
- Pragmatism
- Social Justice
The Confusion and Heterodoxy of Modern Version Proponents: Revisited in Light of “FBFI and the KJV,” Its Reasons and Debate, pt. 2
As a bit of a side note, but worth noting, has been an internal influence of preservation of words, and, therefore, King James Version, around Bob Jones University, mainly through the connection with Ian Paisley. Back in the day, Paisley came to BJU and he was different on this issue than Bob Jones, and yet he was a favorite there. That translated to other influential leaders, like Rod Bell, longtime president of the FBF, now FBFI. Bell believed like Paisley. That faction existed in the Bob Jones crowd.
What is more important, keeping all of the various factions together and for what purpose? Or is it doing our part in the preservation of scripture and also preserving the doctrine of preservation? The two different bibliologies cannot both be true. They shouldn’t coexist.
I come back to Overmiller’s instruction on preservation passages. He’s got a lot of work to do to explain away multiple preservation passages.
Matthew 5:17-18
Overmiller categorizes Matthew 5:17-18 as teaching preservation of scripture directly. Then he contradicts that in his short paragraph about these two verses. He says they may or may not even be about preservation, but about “the unchanging authority of the Old Testament in every detail.” It’s hard to understand what Overmiller is saying, especially in light of what the actual verses say.
There is a simple, plain understanding of Matthew 5:17-18. I agree that the “jot” is the smallest consonant, the yodh. The “tittle,” keraia, through history was understood then as a vowel point. A newer position is that it is just a part of a letter, so jot is the smallest letter and tittle is a part of a letter that differentiates it from other letters.
Heaven and earth are going to pass. That is not symbolic. However, until they pass, not even the parts of words will pass away. Nothing in the law, which is shorthand for the Old Testament, as is the law and the prophets, will pass away until everything in it is fulfilled. This is not metaphorical language. Heaven and earth are heaven and earth and jots and tittles are jots and tittles.
This teaching from Jesus goes right along with all the other passages on preservation. The words of the original language will be preserved, right down to the letter.
Isaiah 40:8
Overmiller says that Isaiah 40:8 doesn’t teach preservation of scripture. It’s very much like Matthew 5:17-18, comparing the temporal existence of something to the eternal existence of something else. Grass and flowers wither and fade, but not the words of God. He says it can’t mean preservation, because there are unwritten words that God did not say that He did not preserve. Who in the history of Christianity has believed that preservation of scripture refers to anything, but God’s written word, not all of the words that He ever spake that are not recorded in scripture? This is nothing but a straw man.
God’s covenant with man is always written, the Old and the New. They should not be separated from one another like the Marcionites. They are the same message, progressively revealed in time, albeit forever settled in heaven. Grass and flowers are tangible. Heavens and earth are tangible. Written words are tangible. The former passes away, the latter continues. To make the latter intangible, spoken words that would not be preserved like these tangible things, doesn’t fit the parallelism.
Matthew 24:35
Again, Overmiller defies the plain meaning of the text. He says it can’t mean preservation, because spoken words of Jesus were never preserved. That is reading something into the text that isn’t there. Jesus’ words “shall not pass away” is very straightforward. The whole eschatological section in Matthew 24 indicates the temporality of heaven and earth as God’s judgment comes, but His words will survive all of that. Yes, you can always count on His words, because they will always be there, unlike heaven and earth. We should prioritize His words, because they will last.
John 10:35
Overmiller writes that this verse is not about preservation. When you read it in its context, it is even more convincingly about preservation. How is scripture broken? A prophecy was made in the Old Testament about Jesus based upon just a few letters, a singular instead of a plural. That argument could be made because the line of the very writings of the Old Testament found in even letters could not be broken. The singulars or plurals of words would continue unbroken.
1 Peter 1:24-25
Overmiller muddles the teaching of preservation here too. In this section, Peter uses the word for particular portions of scripture, rhema, and the one that would refer to all of the Word, logos. They would endure, both of them, the portions and the whole Word, forever. Corruptible seed is seed that rots and disappears. Incorruptible seed remains. Fleshly physical things will not continue, but God’s Word will.
There are more passages Overmiller mentions, and I’ll be coming back to them, perhaps early next week. However, there are quite a few other passages that teach the doctrine of preservation that he left out. We can and should know that scripture teaches its own preservation, down to the smallest letter in the original language, that is, what it was written in.
If you asked the typical people in the pew whether God preserved all of His Words, saved people, they’ll say, yes. A major reason is because the doctrine of preservation is all over the Bible and they also know that is the nature of the one true God. It is preachers who start with textual criticism, who also cast doubt and uncertainty on God’s Word that leaves people in doubt. Just normal, average Christian, no scholar, can see that the Bible teaches its own preservation.
More to Come
The Confusion and Heterodoxy of Modern Version Proponents: Revisited in Light of “FBFI and the KJV,” Its Reasons and Debate
What we know about God and His will comes from His speaking about Himself and what He wants. What we know about the Bible itself we get from the Bible, whether that be inspiration, authority, canonicity, sufficiency, or preservation. Our position on preservation of scripture should be the biblical one. The biblical one would also be a historical one. If a position on preservation is different than what the Bible teaches and what Christians historically believed, that is the one that is confused or heterodox (not orthodox).
For myself, I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong about preservation. I’m willing to go back to the drawing board on this. If I’m wrong, I need to be shown scripture, but almost never am I shown scripture (I don’t remember ever). Even if it comes with a bit of mockery, I would take that in order to be corrected by scripture. Instead, I just get the mockery and not the scripture. The former doesn’t serve to convince me.
My issue with modern versions is that they come from a different text of scripture, even the New King James Version. I am not ready to embrace other modern translations of the same text as the King James Version. I believe that scripture teaches perfect preservation. I haven’t been shown the Bible teaching something different. Saying the Bible teaches something less than perfect preservation is diverging from a biblical and historical position. I’m not fine with that.
What’s curious to me is how that men don’t mind taking a position that is different than one that is biblical or historical. I understand the most conservative position of those who do not believe in perfect preservation of scripture is that all the words are somewhere on earth in an available manuscript. We just don’t know what they are. I don’t see that position reflected in the Bible. My faith comes from scripture, so I reject that position. It won’t convince me to call that confused or heterodox. I don’t believe it and no one has proven it. They assert it without proof. It seems more like propaganda or an attempt to receive applause from a particular crowd.
If people are going to live according to scripture, they have to believe it is scripture, not maybe scripture. If we aren’t sure we have what God said, why would anyone do the hard thing of doing it? It’s a major reason why there is a precipitous drop in obedience to scripture in numbers of areas. The Bible has lost its authority, in part because people are not sure about it. It is way more damaging than Mark Ward’s “false friends” and “dead words,” that criticize translation.
What spawned this post was a series of unfortunate events. The first I wrote about almost a month ago, Mark Ward’s address to the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International Conference. Mark said that the sole usage by a church of the King James Version of the Bible should result in separation by FBFI churches, because of a violation of a very strained application of 1 Corinthians 14, that requires several leaps to arrive at this severe censure. It is not the nature of most of the type of churches of which Ward approves to stretch application of the text to this degree. I can’t think of a single example of a similar practice. The Gospel Coalition, where Mark made an appeal, itself welcomes continuationists, who don’t mind unintelligibility in the form of tongues, an actual direct violation of 1 Corinthians 14 — no call for separation from Mark though for the cool guys at TGC. He veers off the road past the sidewalk into back yards to pick off those who still use the King James Version. I’m fine with separation. I would expect a better basis or explanation.
I’ve said, if Mark’s right, let’s change. I believe it. I’m happy to follow scripture. But second, the FBFI, who had invited Mark in the first place, somewhat walked back his invitation and the content of his session by authoring a post at their online publication, Proclaim and Defend, entitled “FBFI and the KJV,” by Kevin Schaal. I had already mentioned that I didn’t think that anyone in Mark’s audience actually, really believed his farfetched application of 1 Corinthians 14. I would suggest for anyone at least first believing and practicing 1 Corinthians 14 before someone starts with novel applications.
Then third, something akin to Tolstoy’s War and Peace breaks out at professing fundamentalist forum, SharperIron, to deal with this “unimportant” issue (almost always how they refer to it) with at present, 103 comments, an anthology now past the length of a theological treatise. I’ve been mentioned four or five times in the discussion, sometimes, as usual, misrepresented (sometimes I want to guest comment there to clear up the misrepresentations or at least have someone post my comment).
A word used in the FBFI article and then among the comments was orthodoxy, and this was the label claimed by modern version, eclectic-text folk. Another word used very often to classify men such as myself, was “confusion.” I want to address the ideas of orthodoxy and confusion. I also want to speak to a series of articles highly recommended in the comments by Thomas Overmiller, entitled Bible Preservation and Translation. Overmiller wrote these posts in lieu of his leading his church both to change from the King James Version to the New King James, but also to welcome visiting preachers to use the NASV or the ESV at his church. A key line among everything he wrote in his essays was the following:
Biblical evidence indicates that God preserves the words of scripture within the many ancient manuscripts that remain in the world today.
He provided no basis for this position which is the crux of this issue, the preservation of scripture. Mark Ward wants to turn the version issue into readability, where that must be the issue and nothing else, and most others don’t provide any biblical basis at all for a decision. Overmiller uses one of his articles to treat the doctrine of preservation, but he doesn’t make a connection with those passages at all to his conclusion. For the most part, he attempts to explain away the doctrine of preservation while referring to preservation passages.
In a recent post, I mentioned that modern doctrinal statements leave out a doctrine of preservation, that was once included in historic confessions and creeds. They leave it out without explanation. I noticed that in the doctrinal statement provided by the man who began the discussion at SharperIron. They just drop it out. Orthodoxy is right doctrine, doctrine that has been established as right, connected to and in the history of Christian doctrine, what Christians have believed. The unorthodox changes that. By definition, orthodox means:
conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted as right or true; established and approved
The position that was generally or traditionally accepted as right or true, established and approved, the one believed and taught from the Bible is not the one believed and taught by these men using the word “orthodox.” They don’t give me a means to believe what they want me to believe. The new position is the unorthodox one. There is a line of truth and it veers off of it before establishing from scripture why to do that.
The people who are confused are the ones who don’t understand scripture, the ones who have had new or alien teaching draw away their minds from the teaching of the Bible. Very often confusion comes from material external to scripture and virtually everything that buttresses the modern version or an eclectic text position originates from outside of the Bible. It also confuses people as to the certainty of scripture.
The right view of the doctrine of preservation would not find a problem with a new translation. Just because someone wants to keep using the King James Version doesn’t mean that he thinks that every one of those words are the only way to translate a particular word. The impetus for a new translation from the Hebrew Masoretic and the Greek textus receptus, the text behind the King James Version, will come from the churches that use that translation and want a new one. I preached the gospel to a youngish Roman Catholic woman this week, the entire gospel, for over an hour, at the end of which she seemed convinced of what I told her utilizing numerous verses from the King James Version. Hispanic in ethnicity, she absolutely understood it, and she had no scriptural background. This occurs about every week.
Alright, now I want to deal with the supposed exegesis of preservation texts, by Thomas Overmiller. I was very disappointed by what I read from him. I wish I could be happy from his decision to look at the Bible in his attempt to persuade his own church to use a different English translation. His dealing with woeful. I have a hard time not viewing his commentary as dishonest. I know those are harsh words, but my other option is ignorant or just shoddy. Maybe that’s it too, but he’s at least terribly wrong. His first two sentences read:
The Bible provides us with helpful perspective about what to expect regarding the continuation [sic] God’s written words in the world throughout history. This is especially important to understand because the original manuscripts themselves are not available.
Those two sentences don’t seem to be directing someone to the Bible’s teaching on preservation. They do not rely on what scripture says to frame the teaching. The original manuscripts not being available itself is not a teaching of scripture. Preservation is not dependent on possessing them.
He first points to Psalm 12:6-7, which he doesn’t even believe teaches preservation of scripture. Overmiller either doesn’t understand Hebrew or he is playing off the ignorance of his audience. Masculine pronouns do refer to feminine nouns in the Hebrew and especially as they relate to scripture (read here). He leaves this point out. Gesenius’s Hebrew Grammar states that “masculine suffixes are not infrequently used to refer to feminine substantives.” There is a strong argument, especially in the psalms that you would expect the pronoun to be masculine that refers to feminine “words.” Plain reading of the passage reads as though it is teaching preservation of scripture. The whole argument on preservation isn’t buttressed by those two verses, but they should be included as teaching on the preservation of scripture.
It is an odd article that claims to be teaching on preservation and starts by explaining how a passage doesn’t teach preservation of the words of God. This is not uncommon for modern version advocates. They look for ways to explain away what God’s Word says. This is confusing and unorthodox.
Overmiller next deals with Psalm 119:89, which reads: “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” He says that again is not teaching preservation — “it doesn’t speak about preservation at all” — but that God’s Word is unquestioned and authoritative in heaven. At one point and in a wrong way among his eight essays, Overmiller speaks well of the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament. In the Brenton edition, natsab, the Hebrew word translated “settled” in the King James Version, is translated with the Greek word, diamenei. The Hebrew scholars that translated the Brenton edition of the LXX said that “settled” means to “remain, continue.” God’s Word remains or continues in heaven.
When you look at Spurgeon’s Treasury of David on this verse, Spurgeon himself says, “the Lord’s word is from of old the same, and will remain unchanged eternally. . . The power and glory of heaven have confirmed each sentence which the mouth of the Lord has spoken, and so confirmed it that to all eternity it must stand the same.” As he does in the Treasury, Spurgeon quotes others, such as Thomas Manton: “It implies that as God is eternal, so is his word, and that it hath a fit representation both in heaven and in earth.” John Trapp in his complete commentary writes on Psalm 119:89:
It is eternal and perpetual, neither can it be vacated or abolished by the injury of time or endeavours of tyrants. The Bible was imprinted at the New Jerusalem by the finger of Jehovah, and shall outlive the days of heaven, run parallel with the life of God, with the line of eternity.
It isn’t that we can’t get more from this verse than preservation, but that it at least teaches preservation, or adds to what the whole Bible teaches about its own preservation. To say it doesn’t teach preservation at all, but that it refers to “authority” instead, as Overmiller says, just seems like a deliberate misrepresentation. Acid washing preservation from scripture will not justify before God a lax approach to God’s Word.
In the next passage, Psalm 119:152, 160, Overmiller says these passages teach preservation, however, in my opinion attempting to downgrade the preservation teaching by saying they teach the preservation of the Torah. They apply to all of God’s Words. Overmiller should know that in Psalm 119:152, a masculine pronoun “them” refers to a feminine noun, “testimonies.” That can’t occur, right? This is his whole point from Psalm 12:6-7 and one that is sandblasted by Psalm 119:152. Everyone should take this into consideration.
The teaching from Psalm 119:152 and 160 is consistent with what the Bible teaches about its own preservation. It is regular and often. This is why so many people assume that God preserved every word, only to have that undermined by preachers, who have been duped by a rationalist approach.
Lord-willing, I’m going to come back tomorrow to deal with the rest of Overmiller in this section, where he claims to show what the Bible teaches about its own preservation. I look forward to it.
The Trip to Europe Continued (Thirteenth Post In Total)
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When we arrived to our flat in the area of Leith in Edinburgh (pronounced Edinborough) on Friday, June 8, we moved in, and I went around the corner to a city grocer’s to pick up some food for the next few days, especially for breakfast. We did this everywhere we stayed for a few nights — so far in London, when we were there from the first Wednesday night to the following Wednesday morning, and now Edinburgh, where we would stay until early Monday morning.
I pre-purchased most of our tickets before we left California, which allows skipping the lines at almost every place. Usually this means you have to arrive at a scheduled time for your visit, which we did Saturday morning, June 9. It’s about a 25 minute to the center of Edinburgh and the castle opens at 9:30am. The castle is at the end of what Edinburgh calls the Royal Mile, the main street of its old town. One can easily spend the entire day or more between Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile.
From the bus stop, we zig-zagged our way together up to the castle, the most distinguishable emblem of the country of Scotland, that dominates the skyline of Edinburgh. It was a gigantic line that we skipped past because we didn’t need to buy tickets. The entrance gateway is flanked by statues of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace, that open to a cobbled lane leading to a narrow tunnel ending with a metal portcullis gate, which dropped in front of the castle in the case of attackers.
By the eleventh century AD it was established as the principle royal residence in Scotland. Now it houses the Royal Regiment of Scotland and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, St. Margaret’s Chapel, the oldest building in Edinburgh, and the Scottish Crown Jewels. What stood out to me is it’s high position on volcanic rock with an amazing view of Edinburgh and beyond, including the Firth of Forth, and the very birth room of King James VI of Scotland (King James I of England), to Mary, Queen of Scots.
We visited the day of the celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday. The band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland played, along with bagpipes. They fired a 21 gun salute to the Queen with three 150mm howisters. We also viewed the changing of the guard.
The royal mile is an almost exact mile between the castle and Holyrood Palace. Not only is the royal mile crammed with interesting shops and historic sites, but also some of its famous side streets. There is an impressive statue there of a native son, Adam Smith, the economist who wrote The Wealth of Nations. He also lived on that street for a time. The Scottish Parliament is on the royal mile. The house of John Knox is there, and can be toured, the Father of the Scottish Reformation. I visited a cemetery that also had the grave of several well known Scots, including Adam Smith, but I was interested in the tombstone of Horatius Bonar.
The street performers were talented and funny. We stopped for coffee at Cafe Nero, a competitor of Costas in the U.K. We visited many, many shops with lambswool or cashmere scarves, wool being a major industry in Scotland. We finished the mile about 5pm and took the bus back to Leith. We ate pizza at Pizza Express, right next door to our flat. On the other side of the restaurant is a tavern called the King’s Wark, which was an original royal residence and armory for King James I, and a sign marks this reality.
Evan Roberts: The Translation Message, Part 13 of 22
The content of this post is now available in the study of:
1.) Evan Roberts
2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905
on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study. On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.
You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.
Sensing the Presence of God: Is It Biblical?
Can you sense the presence of God? If so, how do you sense the presence of God? Furthermore, is it even necessary to sense the presence of God? Why does it matter? I’ve been in meetings where the leaders of the meeting say they sense the presence of God. I have heard reports of meetings from men saying they sensed the presence of God. I’ve read missionary letters in which the missionary reported as being in a meeting where he sensed the presence of God. In almost every occasion, it is someone who felt the presence of God, so it’s predominately, as I have heard and read, a feeling.
When I was younger, because I heard the above types of statements, I wanted to feel the presence of God or understand how someone could feel His presence. On a regular basis, other people with great confidence said that they could feel God’s presence in their life. I thought I must be missing out on that, because I didn’t feel it. Sometimes I prayed to God that I would feel his presence or know that His presence was in my life. After I prayed that, I looked for some kind of sign that it was true, a feeling of some kind. I started to interpret sensations as His presence, not knowing whether they were His presence or not. All of this was because others had said it was something I should expect.
Perhaps you’ve considered the Christian song, written in 1847 by Scottish Anglican Henry Francis Lyte, “Abide With Me,” that in addition to being a prayer by Christians for God to abide with them, contains this verse:
I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
This is a favorite of revivalist southern gospel quartets. It exacerbates this yearning for a feeling of God’s presence or a sense of His presence that is subjective and mystical. When I read through all of the verses, I don’t think the contents are taught in scripture. The message of the song clashes with the teaching of scripture. God promises to abide with us, if we are saved. No man can pluck us out of His hand. We couldn’t be closer to Him and we don’t need to pray for His abiding or think that we could miss it.
The biography of Lyte, the author of “Abide with Me,” reveals a revivalistic influence on his life that would yield such lyrics. The song has been not just a favorite of the saved, but also the unsaved, including both King George V and VI of England. It has been sung at the English Cup soccer final since 1927 by the entire crowd (story). Concerning his song, modern hymnologist Erik Routley writes in his A Panorama of Christian Hymnody (p. 45),
Perhaps the centrally ‘romantic’ hymn of all hymns is the intensely personal yet, as it has proved, wholly universal hymn, ‘Abide with me.'”
He calls it a “romantic hymn,” which is a product of a period, not scripture.
In addition to the language of “sensing God’s presence,” I’ve furthermore heard men announce that they had prayed for “God to come down” or “asked God to be with us in a special way.” In 1 Kings 18, fire comes from heaven in answer to Elijah’s prayer that burned up the “sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” Sometimes I’ve heard the prayer for God’s presence is worded like “fire coming down.” The Shekinah glory of the Lord came down in the newly dedicated temple of Solomon.
These occasions in the Old Testament are not normative for today. David could lose the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit was upon him in a unique “upon ministry” (not “in”) of the Holy Spirit for his service as King of Israel. It was symbolized by the anointing with oil. In Ezekiel we read of the presence of God leaving Jerusalem because of an apostate nation. We don’t read anything like that in the New Testament. The filling of the Spirit comes by yielding to the Holy Spirit, rather than quenching the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is already in a believer and will not leave a believer, but will not fill the believer, that is, control him, when he is not submitted to the Holy Spirit.
I don’t know of one passage of scripture that says anything about sensing or feeling the presence of God. Maybe I could end this essay right there. What we do know is that God’s presence is everywhere. That’s called His omnipresence. He is present everywhere, but there is more to the presence of God than His omnipresence.
God is everywhere, but He is with believers in a unique way (Is 41:10). God is everywhere, but He is in a unique way not in Hell, because only sinners are there (2 Thess 1:7-9). Before the Holy Spirit came, Jesus wanted believers to pray for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). Once the Holy Spirit came, they didn’t keep praying for Him to come, to be baptized by Him, even to be filled with Him. He’s already there. You don’t ask for what you already have. You just believe that you have it. That is living by faith.
Jesus is said to walk in His churches or to be with the group (Revelation 1:19-2:1, Matthew 18:18-20, 28:19-20). He is not with the Laodicean church, but not because they weren’t praying for Him to stay. He wasn’t there because He wasn’t welcome in the church, which is to say that the entire church had turned away from Him. This is an apostate church full of apostate believers, a church full of Judases.
Further than the reality of God’s presence is the sensing of God’s presence or feeling of it. If God is there, how do you know He is there? It isn’t through “sensing” it or “feeling” it. When people tell you they sense God’s presence, it is akin to a Charismatic experience, where Charismatics attribute to the Holy Spirit certain events or activities that are unscriptural or non-scriptural. Most of those they are just making up, telling a tale. They’re not true. I’m saying they’re lies. It’s the same with the sensing of God’s Spirit.
Men will say they sense the Holy Spirit with a voice of authority or with a complete sense of conviction. They believe they have sensed the presence of God. The statement is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone wanted it, so he felt it, and then he reported it. Now it’s true. It isn’t true, except that he said it.
What gives credence or authority to the one saying he sensed God is others saying nothing to refute it. They don’t want to, because it’s offensive to the one saying it. He’ll argue. He’ll become angry. It’s normal for Charismatics to whom I talk. They want none of it. Usually they say you’re unloving, because you questioned their experience. Christians will just give up on talking to this person and that adds to the experience. He thinks he’s getting advocacy now. When no one speaks up, others think it’s true. It must be. This person with great credibility said it happened.
When someone says he sensed God’s presence, it authenticates what he’s done. What he’s doing might not even be the right thing, but it is the right thing because he sensed God’s presence while it was happening. That authorizes the event. Now it must be right and it can’t be questioned. The authority comes from the experience.
The sensing of God’s presence is also considered to be evidence of an answer to prayer. Someone prayed for the presence of God, which wasn’t necessary and was faithless, but he could say that he got an answer. “God is answering his prayers.” Because God is “answering his prayers,” then what he is doing must be right. It becomes a means of validation.
What occurs then is that other people start looking for the experience of sensing God’s presence. If they don’t sense it, they think of themselves or feel like they are second class Christians. They are missing an experience that Christians are supposed to have. It’s not true. They don’t have to “sense the Holy Spirit or God.” They don’t have to feel anything like that.
What should Christians expect that would indicate they are saved people and, therefore, have the presence of God in their lives, His special presence? It is objective evidence presented by scripture. As a brief summary, the presence of God shows itself: fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), usefulness in the church (Rom 12, 1 Cor 12), boldness in preaching (Acts 4:31), obedience to scripture (Colossians 3:16), and the right relationships (Ephesians 5:18-6:6). Furthermore, a person remains faithful to God, endures in his faith in Jesus Christ, doesn’t give up on the Christian life, and depart from the church. All of these manifest his abiding in Christ and Christ’s abiding in him. These are objective and measurable. Every Christian can do them. There are no spiritual have-nots.
If these of the previous paragraph are the objective witness of the presence of God in a believer’s life, what is it that these other men feel or sense of the presence of God? It’s very ambiguous with a lot of deniability. It’s like a spiritual rorshach test. They can see whatever they want in whatever impulse or feeling. If you criticize it, they can just deny it. Was it a feeling? “Oh no!” Unless it was. At the moment of your question, no, it wasn’t. They still had the sense though.
What happens in five or ten or twenty years and the whole movement falls by the wayside? What’s the explanation for the sudden disappearance of the presence of God? In most of these cases, God was never there in the first place. Someone depended on these highly subjective experiences, which weren’t even true.
What I’ve noticed is that the experiences are produced by people. They use music. They use a particular speaking voice. They create an environment that people can feel. They stay positive, their audience then feels positive, so they are happy. Their upbeat, happy disposition says, Holy Spirit’s presence. These effects can be caused. Sometimes people feel guilt and they want to rid themselves of the feeling of guilt. When they don’t feel guilty any more, absolved by the effects of a special service, they’ll leave feeling better. It may be that nothing really happened, except for the impression that everything was now fine. It wasn’t fine and it isn’t, but they felt like it, so they assumed it was.
Men should stop talking about sensing or feeling the presence of God. It isn’t something anyone should expect. No one should look for it. Whatever feeling someone may have could only cause deceit or confusion. Being faithful to God, actually faithful to Him, requires trusting in the presence of God, whether the feeling is there or not.
Gender Distinctions and Professing Christians Not Handling the Truth: Revisiting the Case Study of Bob Jones University
Last week I talked about Bob Jones University rule changes. The girls wear pants to class now. I haven’t heard why, but other people have explained for BJU out there, let’s call it pantsplaining, providing many different explanations. Let me explain. Pants at one time were masculine, a symbol of manhood, which is also one of authority, headship, being in charge, wearing the pants. Everyone knows that. It’s a symbol on the door of the men’s bathroom.
Several things have happened. The country has turned away from fundamentals of the truth of the most basic social unit, the family. This dovetails with a lack of conversion. If you are saved, you follow God’s design. This is an attack on scripture and, therefore, God. Take away God’s design and then created order, and you can have egalitarianism. The symbols have to go. The representation of the roles have to change. Women now wear the pants. This was forbidden in the culture and then accepted.
Professing Christians, who could not handle the truth, dealt with pants on women with a flurry of options, taking away certainty. It makes my head spin. They complicate a very simple issue and then say it’s complicated. Since you can’t really know anyway, pants are fine. If they still believe in a male garment, they say there are male pants and female pants. There aren’t female pants. None are pointed out. Nothing is designated. The biggest differential that is noticeable is tightness, which can’t be admitted either. If women are wearing pants, they’re tighter, and immodest.
The world mocks the idea that women shouldn’t wear pants. Now professing Christians mock the idea that women shouldn’t wear pants. If they aren’t ridiculing the practice or the requirement, putting space between them and those who hold to it, then they are talking about how unimportant it is.
Bonobos, which I had never heard before the last two days, is called a “menswear brand,” Walmart owned, I have come to learn. In an advertising campaign the company is calling “project 172,” it attempts to sell its product by “redefining masculine.” Bonobos is calling this “evolve the definition.”
Redefining masculine is here, but before that, it was capitulating on the distinctions in role and the elimination of the symbols. Truth lost support. Is it is a gospel issue? 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
The family is the means by which truth is passed down. Less people believe the gospel because of the apostasy of the family. You can’t deny the truth and believe the gospel. They go together. Except a man repent, he will likewise perish. Don’t let these professing Christians fool you. It affects the gospel to accept role reversal.
Today there’s a threat even to say something like I have written here. It’s not going to change if we can’t admit something is wrong. Writing this is a bigger offense today than the actual behavior. The Apostle Paul, speaking of the gospel, said that the effeminate shall not inherit the kingdom of God. You can be right on the Trinity and wrong on this and you will not enter the kingdom of God. You can be right on the deity of Christ and you will not enter the kingdom of God.
If you can change the symbols and their meaning, then don’t be surprised when the meaning of masculine changes too.
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