I’m for freedom.  I’m a capitalist.  I believe in a democratic republic, a free country.  I preach salvation by grace through faith alone and not by works.  There is no greater freedom than that in Christ.  If I wasn’t writing this in a coffee shop, I might jump and down right now with freedom. I have the freedom to do that.

Christ freed me from sin.  I couldn’t do that.  I was helpless under the Mosaic Covenant.  I couldn’t stop sinning, but with the new covenant, Christ freed me to live righteous.  Even then, I sin, but He frees me from the punishment of sin.  I have power over sin, because of the freedom in Christ.  I praise God through Christ has set me free.  Amen!

I’m not getting to heaven by works, unless we’re talking about the work, the finished work of Christ, which produces good works in me.  I can do good works.  Paul exclaims at the end of Romans 7, thank God for the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.  If I was stuck with only the law of sin in my members, I could never do good, but through His workmanship, I can both will and do of his good pleasure.

Someone emailed this week and said the following, “We DO have freedom in Christ. Kent mocks that idea” (caps written by original author).  Kent is me.  So, according to this statement, I mock the idea that we have freedom in Christ.  It’s a strange statement to read about myself, because I’ve preached for freedom in Christ on many occasions, really mention and preach it every week if not every day of my life (probably more than my critic), and could show notes from those sermons as evidence.

When someone hears something from someone, let’s say right from scripture, perhaps an exposition of a passage, so this is from God, His Word, the right response is to listen, acquiesce, humble one’s self and obey.  So that’s what people do, right?  Nope.  Read through the gospels and see what people do with Jesus.  He tells them the truth, then what do they do?  They attack Him.  He’s from Nazareth.  He’s Beelzebub.  He’s born out of wedlock.  What authority does He have?  None of it has started dealing with what He actually said.  It’s going after Him.

Gospel means “good news,” good news that we can be saved, that God wants to save us.  We need to be saved, but we also can be saved.  We don’t deserve it, but God in His nature saves, wants to save us, and we can be saved.  Nothing is more important to anything and everything in life than being saved, which includes relationship with God and relationship with man.

Ephesians deals with relationship.  I’ve started to include that in my series on relationship and will continue through Ephesians and other relationship books and passages for exposition.  I established in that series (all links to every part are HERE), and showed how that wrong relationship (in part thirteen) with God is the paradigm or template for a wrong relationship with men.  The impediments to relationship with men do proceed from the barrier in relationship with God.  They do proceed.  This is axiomatic; it is a rule.

A fundamental way that Paul shows in Ephesians that someone can know and understand the relationship with God is by means of the relationship with men, and this relates to one of the two primary ways the gospel is distorted.  Nothing is worse than the gospel being distorted.  It means people go to Hell.  When someone does it, he is causing more damage than any singular activity on earth.  He should be rebuked in the strongest possible terms.

One distortion of the gospel is represented in many places in the New Testament, but in the epistle to the Galatians in a classic way.  Paul rebukes Peter to his face for a corruption of the gospel that today someone might think is meaningless.  Peter chooses not to eat meat with Gentile Christians in Antioch because of the pressure of Jews from Jerusalem.  Paul withstands Peter to his face for doing that, because of what it would do to the gospel.  This is the “adding works to grace” kind of corruption, or what has been termed, legalism.

Today, professing evangelicals have assigned legalism to all sorts of activity that resemble nothing like what Paul confronts with Peter and so they conveniently distort the problem of actual legalism, real legalism, which is a problem still, but not to the extent of a worse one presently, the second of the two primary distortions of the gospel in the New Testament.  This one is also all over the New Testament, but I want to focus on what one should see in Ephesians about this.  It could be a corollary to my relationship series.  I am motivated right now by a specific example, and I’ll get to that.  Someone I know well is corrupting and confusing the gospel.  It’s too big of a problem not to expose.

Ephesians 5:1-13 and the Other Distortion of the Gospel, the Main One Today

I could cover more or less than the first 13 verses of Ephesians 5, but that’s what will expose the point.  I’m going to bold certain portions to show you that this relationship material does apply to the gospel.  Read these verses (all of them)!

1 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. 3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; 4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. 5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. 7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them. 8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: 9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) 10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. 13 But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

If you are a “dear child” (v. 1), you are saved (John 1:12), and children will follow their Father, literally “imitate.”  The supreme example of this is Christ, as seen in His obedience to the Father, offering himself as a sacrifice to God.  Yes, He gave Himself for us, but He was also pleasing the Father, described as being a sweetsmelling savour to the Father.  Contrasted with this (“But”) is something different, which isn’t being a child of God, which is later “a child of light,” rather than a “child of disobedience.”  Paul uses this same phrase in Ephesians 2:3 in that gospel passage of Ephesians 2:1-10, that also is formulated for relationship, starting in Ephesians 2:11.

Paul is dealing with a distortion of the gospel, and he commands in in Ephesians 5:6, “Let no man deceive you.”  It’s obvious that there were false teachers that were deceiving in this way, giving people the impression that someone might be a dear child or child of the light, who is participating in these types of activities.  Today this is mainly called “antinomianism.”  In the New Testament, especially exposed in 2 Peter and Jude, it is turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.  In Galatians, it is using grace as an occasion of the flesh.  This is not the grace of God.  It is an impostor, counterfeit grace, but it is popular in evangelicalism today, often called free grace and now I’ve read, “scandalous grace” (read this and this).  It is not the gospel.  It is a placebo that gives people a horrific false sense of security.  That is the scandal of it.  Paul says, don’t be deceived by that false gospel — the person who is deceived will not inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Right now, I have good reason to believe that someone who I love dearly, almost as much as anyone, is being deceived by this kind of deception.  I have no good reason to think he isn’t.  He is promoting exactly what the Apostle Paul says not to do here, and then Paul also characterizes it as a non-Christian.

Let’s go back to Ephesians 5.  Paul contrasts Christ’s obedience, which is His love, with that which might include the acts of fornication, uncleanness, or covetousness (5:3).  Paul doesn’t stop there, he also brings it to the equivalent in speech:  filthiness, foolish talking, and jesting (5:4).

The actions are bad, but Paul doesn’t stop there.  He includes the people, who talk about these things.  “Filthiness” is obscenity, someone who uses the foul language or suggestive language in line with fornication.  “Foolish talking” is the kind of talk of a fool, and a fool is an unbeliever, but it is characterized by temporal and of this world and lust again (see eph 2:1-3, please read).  “Jesting” is coarse, double entendre and innuendo.  It’s not funny but it is made light of, even though Paul says it shouldn’t even be “named among you.”  Christians won’t use this language and of course would never direct to or support someone else who uses it, like an entertainer, comedian, or “musician.”  Popular music is full of, primarily constituted by, filthiness, foolish talking, and jesting.

Paul is clear.  People who act this way and talk this way are not followers of God, not His dear children, not loving, not a sweet smelling savor to God, not a child of light and not acceptable to the Lord, but instead a child of disobedience, darkness, and those not inheriting the kingdom of God but instead recipients of God’s wrath.  They are not saved.  Are you listening?  Are you being deceived?  Stop being deceived.  This view of grace is false.  You will right now walk away from this view of grace, because it is false, whoever is telling you it, even if it is an uncle, an aunt, a cousin, a proclaiming preacher, an author, or a professing friend.  He isn’t your friend.  He is a deceiver.  If you are saved, you’ll be able to walk away from it.

What Paul Says to Do About It

Paul first commands not to be deceived.  He doesn’t stop there.  He makes some commands to the church that are typically not done and church members don’t look fondly on them.  Let me remind you of what they are.

Be not ye therefore partakers with them.
Walk as children of light.
Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.
Rather reprove them (make manifest them).
Don’t speak of them even in secret (let alone in public).

It doesn’t say, like, be silent, get along, tolerate, and be polite with.  Separation must occur.  No approval can be shown.  It must be rebuked.  That is real speech.

Here’s the thing.  Today in this postmodern world, almost everyone, especially millennials, think that love is tolerating this behavior.  “Scandalous grace” tolerates it.  Jesus doesn’t.  God doesn’t.  These people will not be in His kingdom, but be under His wrath.  If you rebuke it, you are doing the right thing.  If you don’t, you are not doing the right thing.  You are allowing it to be done, unlike a child of light.  You are not loving this person. You are jumping in with this person.  Do not do this!

The one I love is promoting new “country artists,” and he says every week he’ll do some of it more.  I looked into the lyrics of the first three.  I’m not even talking about the sensual, lustful music, which is bad enough, but the lyrics are filthy, foolish, and jesting.  Almost everything they write has this in it.  He calls them “authentic” and “honest” and “know how to deliver a hook,” which are nonsense as a means of evaluation.  Everywhere one can adjudicate biblical teaching, they violate God.  They represent darkness, disobedience, and all things that should not even be named, let alone promoted.  This first one he pushes everyone to hear (what Christian would do this?) has these lyrics:

Whoever wrote the rules of breaking up never kissed your lips
Touched your skin, held the world at their fingertips
Didn’t have a clue what heaven was
No they didn’t have to lose that kind of love
And if they ever saw that smile, ever felt your fire
They might know what I’m going through
Whoever wrote the rules of breaking up
Ever been broke up? Broke up

There is more and there is worse.  The next one he endorses, sing their song, Underage, which says these:

Young,
All we ever think about is fun
All we ever wanna be is 21
Hey, doesn’t everyone wanna sit on top of the world?
Revolves around athletic boys and girls
Dressed up in their older sister’s clothes, R. Kelly on the radio
Screaming out, “This’ll never get old” 

Racing cars and breaking hearts
First taste of love and twist-off wine
Kissing strangers, daring danger
Burning bridges, crossing lines
You don’t think to take it slow
And you don’t know what you don’t know
The nights are young and our IDs are fake
Underage
Underage 

Time,
Feels like it’s always on our side
So we fill it up with midnight drives and lies
To your mama when she asks you where you’ve been
And you hide your smile and say anywhere but with him
‘Cause you know when she was seventeen
She was doing the same **** thing

I’m going to stop there, but it doesn’t get better.  It’s worse.  The language is worse and the themes are worse.  The above is tame and being used just for the blog post.  These not only shouldn’t be promoted and pushed.  The world doesn’t need it.  Satan will get the word out.  Christians should be talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, which I just don’t see.  This is just the opposite.  Take into consideration everything Paul says in Ephesians 5 with these examples as a consideration.

If someone is to the point where he says he’s a Christian, who loves Jesus, and yet he is promoting and adulating the above types of groups and lyrics, then he is being deceived like Paul talks about.  I think we should assume, that since Paul writes this to a church, that the church could be deceived and that a Christian could be deceived.  If a Christian is deceived, when he is being taught or warned, he will also listen (cf. James 1:18-27), and repent of this type of behavior.  I look forward to that from anyone who is an actual believer and in this present condition.

In this postmodern age, people don’t want to suffer at all and they “succeed” by avoiding any and all suffering.  This includes suffering for evil doing.  The feel entitled not to suffer for evil doing.  You could see how postmodern that is.  There can’t be evil doing in a post modern world, except for bringing suffering to an evil-doer.  Just telling one of them they’re wrong is evil doing, which is in social media world, “not like.”  When postmoderns do wrong, they don’t want to hear it, and if they do, they have suffered.  Even if parents are the ones telling them, they are the real evil doers.  That’s the only rule in their postmodern world.  Do you know the verse for that?

There isn’t one.

Just the opposite.

Peter in his foremost epistle on suffering writes (read it all, but bold for emphasis):

1 Peter 2:20, For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. 

1 Peter 3:13-14, 16-17, 13 And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? 14 But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; 16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. 17 For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. 

1 Peter 4:12-16, 12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: 13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. 14 If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. 16 Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

No one should be surprised when he suffers as an evil doer.  Throughout scripture, one repeated aspect of repentance for evil doing is admittance of the deserving of the punishment, essentially of taking the punishment.  A person who is angry with punishment, that he deserves, is not repentant.  This is a major theme of the book of Lamentations.   God will most often show mercy to unrepentant sin.  He gave multiple opportunities to Israel. The punishment is the barbaric siege of Jerusalem that God brings as a means of chastisement.  It is savage treatment by the Babylonians. Here are some excerpts a samples (bold again for emphasis).

Lamentations 1:5, 8, 15, 18,  5 Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.  8 Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.  15 The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.  18 The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment. 

Lamentations 2:4, 17,  4 He hath bent his bow like an enemy: he stood with his right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: he poured out his fury like fire. 17 The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries. 

Lamentations 3:1, 26-30, 33-43 1 I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. 26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. 27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. 28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. 29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope. 30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.  33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. 34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth, 35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High, 36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not. 37 Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? 38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? 39 Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? 40 Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD. 41 Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens. 42 We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned. 43 Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied. 

Lamentations 4:6, 13, 22,  6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. 13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her, 22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins. 

Lamentations 5:15-17,  15 The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. 16 The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned! 17 For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim. 

Especially look at Lamentations 3, the apex of the book, where Jeremiah writes that this punishment from God is His faithfulness, great is His faithfulness (3:23).

Another facet of what I’m writing about in this essay is the example of the Babylonian captivity of Judah.  Judah went through a siege, but then captivity and part of her repentance before God was accepting the punishment she received.  People who can’t take their punishment are not repentant.  One should also consider the repentance of Zacchaeus in Luke 19.  Part of his repentance was retribution or remuneration, which was punitive.  He had to pay back with a high percentage of interest money that he admitted that he stole through wicked taxation.

The duration of the Babylonian captivity was precisely 70 years.  The reason for that captivity is that Israel had failed to observe 70 Sabbath years (Leviticus 26:27-35; 2 Chronicles 36:20-21).  Matthew Henry writes in his commentary on Jeremiah 27:

Jeremiah the prophet, since he cannot persuade people to submit to God’s precept, and so to prevent the destruction of their country by the king of Babylon, is here persuading them to submit to God’s providence, by yielding tamely to the king of Babylon, and becoming tributaries to him, which was the wisest course they could now take, and would be a mitigation of the calamity, and prevent the laying of their country waste by fire and sword; the sacrificing of their liberties would be the saving of their lives. I. He gives this counsel, in God’s name, to the kings of the neighbouring nations, that they might make the best of bad, assuring them that there was no remedy, but they must serve the king of Babylon; and yet in time there should be relief, for his dominion should last but 70 years (v. 1-11). II. He gives this counsel to Zedekiah king of Judah particularly (v. 12-15) and to the priests and people, assuring them that the king of Babylon should still proceed against them till things were brought to the last extremity, and a patient submission would be the only way to mitigate the calamity and make it easy (v. 16-22).

Read especially Jeremiah 27:8-11:

8 And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. 9 Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: 10 For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish. 11 But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the LORD; and they shall till it, and dwell therein.

In 1975, Jakob Van Bruggen (Wikipedia link), longtime professor of New Testament at the Theological College of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, gave a lecture on the text of the New Testament in Broederwig, Kampen at the anniversary of the College.  The transcript of the lecture was translated into English and was published into a forty page booklet entitled, The Ancient Text of the New Testament.  With his lecture, Van Bruggen argued for the superiority of the majority text and the textus receptus (those two are not seen as the same thing anymore, but at one time, the textus receptus would be referred to as the majority text — for the sake of the reader, very often the terms textus receptus, received, Church, ecclesiastical, Syrian, Byzantine, traditional, and majority are used interchangeably).  I want to explain his lecture in a manner that almost anyone reading could understand his argument.  It is very good.

When I consider the text of scripture and its preservation, I start with scriptural presuppositions about what we should expect God to have preserved and to have made or kept available.  This is the best approach or even the right one, but it is also important, I believe, to accompany that with an explanation of the text in a historical manner.  Van Bruggen has thought through and given a good defense in a textual way, and it should be considered.  It is strong.

The first line reads:  “The New Testament textual criticism of the twentieth century is characterized by great uncertainty.”  He says that “on the surface the opposite seems to be the case,” because there is so much agreement among Catholics and Protestants in support of the eclectic Nestles text of the United Bible Society.  He follows:

All this does not yet mean that there is certainty about the correct text of the New Testament.  Agreement can be based on mutual certainty, but also on mutual uncertainty.  And the latter is the case.

Furthermore, he writes:

This again means acquiescence in a consensus text which has been determined on the basis of uncertainty. . . . many readings which have been chosen only by the majority of the committee.   That they did not unanimously arrive at a text. . . . At present there is no certainty concerning the history of the textual tradition. . . . the eclectic method is generally followed. . . . Subjectivity is not out of the question with this method.  Thus they will just have to arrive at a text by majority vote.

In contrast, he continues with some seeming tongue-in-cheek:

Among all uncertainties of the 20th century, we, however, to one great, lasting uncertainty in the modern textual criticism. . . . One can even say that the modern textual criticism of the New Testament is based on one fundamental conviction that the true New Testament text is at least not found in the great majority of the manuscripts.  The text which the Greek church has read for 1000 years, and which the churches of the Reformation have followed for centuries in their Bible translations, is now regarded as defective and deficient. . . . Already for more than 100 years the certainty that this type of text is inferior has already been taken for granted. . . . The heritage of the 19th century criticism was a solitary certainty — the inferiority of this “traditional text.” . . . .  It is striking how emotionally people often speak about this one certainty.

Van Bruggen does not explain why one should even expect certainty for the text of the New Testament.  This is a single lecture that doesn’t come close to asserting everything, so he just assumes the expectation of certainty.  The nature of God and His Word assumes certainty.  Uncertainty is not a satisfactory basis for faith.  It should be easy to understand why certainty is important.  Scripture itself affirms certainty to the jot and tittle, every word, settled to the extent that a curse exists on those who add or take away from the words (Rev 22:18-19).  I often hear evangelicals today mock the expectation, approaching certainty like of course it isn’t to be expected.  This exposes their absence of biblical presuppositions.

To segue to the argument of the book, Van Bruggen writes:

The friction between certainty and uncertainty in modern New Testament textual criticism gives occasion to ask what reasons are given for rejecting the Byzantine or Church text, which has been used for many centuries. . . . There is a scientific and religious duty to ask the question whether the ancient text of the New Testament is not found in the majority of the manuscripts and whether the church has failed to follow the truly ancient text for many centuries.

Van Bruggen asserts that the rejection of the textus receptus is accepted as fact in the 20th century, but not defended.  The defense is merely refer “to the work of Hort in the 19th century.  Yet the various arguments of Hort are no longer generally accepted today”  As well, “no new supplementary arguments against the Byzantine text have been worked out.”  Van Bruggen summarizes the arguments of Hort against the Syrian text or the traditional text as the following:

1. this text goes back to a revision of the Greek text in the 4th century, probably under the leadership of Lucianus of Antioch;
2. this text can on external grounds be characterized as a late text:  it is not found in the old majuscules and it is not followed by the Church Fathers before Nicea in the New Testament quotations;
3. this text can on internal grounds be characterized as secondary because of its inclusive nature (conflate readings) and because of its tendency to harmonize and assimilate, leading to a complete and lucid text.

Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Four   Part Five   Part Six   Part Seven   Part Eight   Part Nine   Part Ten
Part Eleven   Part Twelve

In a church, all parties must reconcile based upon the truth.  Mediation might be necessary.  It is required in a church because unity is required in a church.  Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:25:

That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.

God requires no schism in the body.  We know that schisms are caused by violations of scripture, so those are what need to be resolved.  We also know that issues of liberty are not to cause schisms (Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 6-10), even if they still might.

Both scriptural issues and non-scriptural ones must be dealt with for reconciliation to occur.  I know that the non-scriptural issues are sometimes the bigger for people than scriptural ones.  They are also very often more difficult.  However, they also must be recognized to be non-scriptural issues, even though they are harder.

At my age and for the number of years as pastor of a church, I have seen many convinced of a wrong that did not exist.  Someone was offended, but no scripture was violated.  Very often it is an offense of conventional wisdom or a societal norm.  A true mediator would inform of the non-biblical nature of the offense, and the one offended might at that juncture desire a different mediator.  The Apostle Paul was judged and condemned many a time on ginned up charges.  Someone with hurt feelings still could expect punishment exacted for perceived violations.

When it comes to determine whether an offense has occurred, what the offense is, and how it will be reconciled, the severed parties must come to an understanding of whether it is a scriptural offense.  Even if it is a non-scriptural offense, the two parties will need to agree on how to proceed forward with unity.  Some of the biggest breaches in marriage are non-scriptural.  The wrong reaction to one of these sometimes is the violation.  It doesn’t mean that the non-scriptural scruple isn’t an obstacle.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul said that love “seeketh not her own.”  If something bothers someone else that is non-scriptural, love can give it up, as long as giving it up isn’t a transgression of a biblical teaching.  There isn’t a verse that prohibits chewing gum.  Nothing in the Bible says that someone can’t chew gum with his mouth open, snapping it and popping it.  Things like this — and I mean, like this — can really bother a party.  The major problem isn’t the so-called “gum snapping” here, but the unwillingness to give it up, when it isn’t required to “snap gum” either (and again, I’m using it as an example).

If a non-scriptural issue can’t be resolved, the inability to resolve often is the trouble.  Someone might be sinning and causing disunity.  Someone is not endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit.  For a resolution, terms will likely need to be set and someone else might need to come in and mediate the situation.  Unity is based on what scripture says.  If it doesn’t say anything, unity itself must be bigger than something scripture doesn’t say, because the Bible does require unity.  Very often dissension is caused by something a mere preference.

Outside of a church, the terms of reconciliation are still scriptural.  Two parties must align upon scripture.  Actual reconciliation will not defy scripture.  Reconciliation will fail if one side or both will not acquiesce to God’s Word.  If one side will and the other will not, the latter is the one causing the division.  If one side won’t even have the Bible opened as a means of judgment, that side is not interested in reconciliation.

Scripture shows that often two sides can’t get along because one of them doesn’t want to give up its sin.  It doesn’t want to be judged by a mediator, because that might mean giving up sin.  That’s a side that wants acceptance and approval, but not a relationship as God defines it.  The relationship of God is walking in the light as he is in the light.

As we work our way through the Bible about relationship, it is the story of transgressing the Word of God.  The pursuit of reconciliation confronts the offense.  Instruction might be necessary.  The offending party may not want to repent.  That is the cause of the division.  Maybe the one offended might not want to forgive the offender.  That can happen too, but either way, someone sinned or someone thinks someone has sinned against him.

An attempt at reconciliation that might include mediation if necessary is not the failing of a relationship.  The unwillingness to reconcile and to receive mediation is the failing.  If someone wants a relationship, he will want the biblical means of obtaining it or preserving it.  If someone doesn’t want to be judged at all, he is not going to achieve reconciliation.  I would call that party stubborn, rebellious, or proud or something like those.  Those aren’t biblical, Christian qualities.

Relationship could be said to be the theme of the Bible.  It could be argued.  It could easily be demonstrated that certain books of the Bible are primarily about relationship.  One of those I would contend is an important New Testament epistle, Ephesians.  Chunks of other books, sometime large portions, are about relationship.  I think Ephesians is all about relationship.  I believe the main concern of Paul in the book is the relationship in the church at Ephesus, but that is dependent upon the relationship with God.  It’s about both God and the Ephesians but the point is unity between church members.

Ephesians and Relationship

Relationship is the chief concern of Ephesians.  This fits with what we Jesus informs of Christianity in His upper room discourse and then prayer to His Father (John 14-17).  Anybody who really cares about relationship will consider it within these contexts.  The problem with each other starts with a problem with God, the alleviation of which is the source for right relationship with each other.  In other words, the problem between men starts with a problem with God, the solution of the latter is the basis for the solution of the former.

The epistle reads as though the purpose of the teaching on relationship with God is toward the right relationship with each other in the church.  Right relationship is modeled in the church and an example of what God intended between He and men and between men with men.

Paul highlights the conflict in relationship between Jews and Gentiles beginning in Ephesians 2:11.  The conflict between men and men mirrors the conflict between men and God, which Paul describes as being dead to God because of at least six different reasons, all ameliorated by the power of Christ’s resurrection:  sin and trespasses, worldliness, Satan, disobedience, lust, and wrath.  This is all very objective, concrete basis for a barrier in relationship between God and man.  The same causes the rift between men and men — real, true reasons, not just impressions or feelings.

Before Paul moves to the disunion between people, he establishes the foundational cause of that division seen in what keeps people away from God.  These are the real reasons, not the phony ones that people will use that are extricated by psychobabble or someone’s own interests.  When I evaluate my relationship with other people, the base reasons in Ephesians 2:1-3 represent the same ones that separate me from people.  The first one is sin or trespasses, so actual sinning (v. 1).  The second is walking after “the course of this world” (v. 2), and I want to park there for a moment.

I can’t coexist with worldly people, people who are so immersed in worldly things, even if not in and of themselves sinful.  People that are constantly in tune with all things popular in the world, the hashtags, the media, orchestrated by what comes next in Ephesians 2, “the prince of the power of the air” or “the spirit that now worketh” (v. 2).  Satan keeps his people distracted with things that don’t go the way of obedience to God, or in other words toward “disobedience,” also in v. 2, “the children of disobedience.”  Disobedience is not sin or trespass, but not doing what God wants them to do.  They don’t talk about God, the Bible, salvation, the gospel, spiritual things, and if they do, they are very veiled in the way they do it so as not to disassociate with the world.

There are fads, activities, and philosophies in the world, the ways of the world, that keep people in association with the world.  Those ways run incongruent to someone who is in the light, is heavenly, and alive to God.  I want to use purposefully what will be considered to be a less plain example.  There are much clearer ones than this, that I’ll also mention those.  A boy or man wears his baseball cap backwards all the time.  It’s not something I even bring up to people, but I just saw someone mock fathers who say something about this to their sons.

There’s nothing wrong with wearing a baseball cap backwards.  The catcher does that so he can wear the catcher’s mask.  But the cap was designed for the bill of the cap in front.  I also find an affront the stiff-billed hip-hop cap.  Not me, but quora displays knowledge when it asserts, “Most people who wear their caps backwards are trying to look cool.”  The father who simplifies things by saying the backwards cap is rebellion is just saying that it runs counter to design or it signals someone functioning against natural law.  Now it looks like someone attempting to compensate because of some lack, perhaps lack in confidence, that he should be getting through Jesus Christ.  Fathers could, instead of dealing with this symptom, look to help with the underlying cause — why is he so eager to fit with the course of this world system?

The course of this world is most seen in entertainment, music, and recreation, those who fill their lives up with lust and pleasure, lust which is mentioned in v. 3, “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.”  Booze, rock music, dancing, partying, and regular talk about smutty television mark this person.  This breaks my relationship with this person, but it also is what is severing his relationship with God.  The former again proceeds from the latter.

Godliness, interest in heavenly things, a resurrected type behavior, what Paul calls, seeking those things which are above (Colossians 3:1) are the regular way of a true believer, providing some basis of genuine relationship.  Having to attempt to figure out the latest fad or approve of temporal things to show acceptance or toleration is not a biblical relationship, so it isn’t relationship.  It is a capitulation to anything or everything. We can’t serve God and mammon.  A choice must be made, and those “relationships” must be left aside.

More to Come

From what I’ve read and heard, almost every generation of older people think things are worse now than before.  It’s almost a rite of passage into old age to complain about what young people are doing now, comparing it to the way things were done. This expectation of each succeeding generation of old people is so anticipated that it might be assumed that things aren’t actually worse, it’s just the familiar protestations of the next crop of spinsters.  The postulation becomes, “don’t trust the notions of the aged.”  Except.  Things really are much worse now.  Take that from someone who still hasn’t started ordering off the senior menu, even though in spirit a card-carrying old-timer.

The excerpt above is from Wilhelmus a Brakel’s 4 volume systematic theology called The Christian’s Reasonable Service, which has been made available in an indexed form online.