Parts One and Two

The fundamental of Christian liberty is that we are free from something unto something else, which is that we are free from bondage to sin, including the causal factors, the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are no longer citizens of this world, but heaven. Our god isn’t our belly any longer. We don’t mind earthly things, as someone who is building his own kingdom on this earth through his own efforts.  Our affections are set on things above — we are free to do that. We get to do that.

Christian liberty is liberty not to sin. We don’t have to sin anymore and don’t even want to sin anymore. In Romans 7, Paul said, when he would do good, that is when the law of sin in members rises up against that desire.  You are worshiping and serving the Creator rather than the creature.  God didn’t save you to serve the creature, yourself.  Liberty isn’t being able to serve your self now; it’s being able to serve God.

Hebrews 2:2 divides sin into two categories:  transgression and disobedience.  Those are the categories of sins of commission, doing what you aren’t supposed to do, and disobedience, not doing what you are supposed to do.  Sin isn’t just not doing wrong.  It is also not doing right.  Liberty isn’t getting to do what you want, but doing what God wants, what pleases Him, which is of the highest value.  Your life takes on greater value, eternal value, versus the bondage to temporal things, which waste your life.

All of what I said above is what Christian liberty is about, that is, finding out what God said and doing it, because you can do it now that you’ve been set free to do so.  This lines up with the great sections on Christian liberty by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:1-11:1 and Romans 14.  It also fits into what we read about in Galatians 3-6.  Your liberty serves others, not yourself.  As his prime example of this in Galatians, Paul says it is restoring someone taken in a fault (6:1).  That requires confronting someone for doing something wrong.

Liberty is contrasted in the New Testament with license. Liberty isn’t license. License is permission and some today confuse it with liberty.  They think and then say that you are restricting their liberties in a kind of legalistic fashion, because you are not giving them license.  They want to do something that they don’t have liberty to do, and when you say, no, they say that you are teaching some type of salvation by works.  They are depending on grace, which is why, they might explain, you can’t bring that restriction.  By doing so, they feign that you are an opponent of the grace of God.  This is an abuse of God’s grace, turning it into a garbage can into which pours their own lust.

Alright.  Think about what I’ve written so far, but I want to relate Christian liberty to church autonomy.  We don’t have liberty to disobey scripture, even if our church takes an unscriptural position.  The Bible is the final authority.  Church is about the Bible and not vice versa.  Church isn’t an excuse for being unscriptural.  Quite a few independent or even unaffiliated Baptist churches seem to treat scripture as if it has a major purpose of protecting church authority, sort of putting the cart ahead of the horse.

In Acts 15, correction of the Jersualem church came from Antioch.  You see this at the beginning of Galatians when Paul came in to correct Peter.  I’ve heard something to the effect, “You can’t talk to me about that, because I’m not part of your church, so it’s none of your business.”  Because of the nature of the media and social networking, churches have more effect on each other than ever.  One church can harm another church, because of the connection between members, and it is rampant.  What one church is “allowed to do,” which isn’t in fact a Christian liberty, can affect another church, when one of its members is influenced by the membership of another church.  Very often, it spreads through family members who are in various other churches.

Church members are going to go outside of their church for teaching and materials.  They will watch or listen to podcasts.  Most of the time today, they’re going to get a bad influence from outside of the church.  As a pastor, I don’t want my church to get a bad influence from outside of the church.  It happens.  They can hear almost anything that disagrees with what our church teaches.  A church member doesn’t have liberty to listen to or watch harmful materials.  Autonomy of a church is justified here, because it protects someone from unscriptural belief and practice.

In a less significant way today, one church could affect another church in a stronger way or in a biblical way.  Someone is sinning.  He doesn’t have liberty to sin.  He needs to change.  He reads that in a blog or receives that influence from another family member on social networking.  Maybe he believes it or receives it and it clashes with the teaching of his church, so that now he puts his own pastor on the radar.  The pastor of his own church is being judged by this teaching that he hasn’t taught.

Let me give you an example.  Our church sings psalms.  We use the versification of a psalter.  It isn’t the King James translation that we’re singing to God.  By the way, that would make me not KJVO, even though I take credit for being KJVO.  It’s obvious that technically I’m not.  I think that the versification we sing of the Hebrew Masoretic text is scripture.  However, it’s hard to sing psalms if you haven’t done it.  It’s not like riding a bike.  You have to acquire the ability through some labor, because you believe in it.  Lots of churches won’t want it, sometimes because they want those 7-11 songs, the same seven verses sung eleven times.  They’ll want to stick with something else that people like and is easier for them to do.

So the church member of the psalm singing church through social networking affects the member of a non-psalm-singing church.  He quotes Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19.  The influence leads the member to pressure his pastor toward psalm singing.  The pastor doesn’t want to sing psalms for whatever reason.  This seems to trouble a church.  The church can do what it wants to do because it is autonomous.  It isn’t required to do what some other church is doing.  It has liberty not to sing psalms based upon its own autonomy.  Or does it?  Autonomy is not for disobeying scripture.  Finding out something you are not doing, that you could and should be doing, is not trouble for you.  That’s a good thing happening to a church, to find out how to be more scriptural.  Autonomy is for protecting a church against unscriptural practices not scriptural ones.

Autonomy doesn’t guide Christian liberty.  The Bible does.  We are all under the same truth and the same authority.  Churches are not allowed to function in a different way just because they want their own way, that they call autonomy.  If someone can prove something from scripture, the answer to the argument isn’t church autonomy.  Churches are not to protect themselves from biblical practice.  Professing Christians shouldn’t join a church or even stay for the cover it gives them for their sin or lust.

I ended the last post with the biblical and historical teaching of sola scriptura.  Scripture itself does not denude a church or individual Christian from the influence of the church past and present.  Scripture doesn’t start teaching something different after centuries.  The displacement of the church from its agreement with the past teachings of the church is differentiated from sola scriptura with the terminology, nuda scriptura.  The same Holy Spirit who guided the church four hundred years ago and two hundred years ago is the same Holy Spirit today.  Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit considers the unity with the church five hundred years ago in its application of scripture.  Divorce from former teaching is divorce from reliance on scripture.  That is not sola scriptura, but nuda scriptura.

Sometimes you’ll hear of the “heresy” of a particular false religion.  Heresy is division.  I see in scripture two types of heresy.  There is the factiousness in a church, dividing from the unity of a church and the leadership of its pastor.  This is the heresy of Titus 3:9-11.  However, it is heresy to divide from historic, established, orthodox teaching and practice.  The new teaching that differs from biblical belief and behavior is the heretical teaching.  The Bible teaches this.  This is one of the aspects of Paul’s teaching, walking disorderly against the traditions that you received.  These are not the traditions of men, but the means by which God delivers His one faith or doctrine to you.  You don’t have liberty to veer off already established teachings, unless you can show how that those people had been wrong all those centuries.

A human tradition is one originated outside of scripture, like infant sprinkling or transubstantiation.  You can see when those entered into the belief and practice of churches.  They didn’t start with the Bible.  Something that has been believed and practiced from the Bible isn’t a human tradition, but it is a tradition nonetheless, like the ones that the Thessalonian churches received from Paul.  We don’t have liberty to disobey those traditions.  They are part of sola scriptura, because teachings of scripture cannot be nor should be extricated from the context of the church, the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Sola scriptura does not rightly justify dropping the rightful applications of the bible by the church for centuries.  Immodesty then was immodesty now.  Forbidden gender indistinction then should be the same now.  Skirts or dresses on women then should be skirts or dresses on women now.  Scripture is being either transgressed or disobeyed because it isn’t being applied like it has been for all of church history.  This is a violation of Christian liberty.

Post On Christian Liberty Last Week, Entitled “Evangelicals (and Most Fundamentalists) Are Completely Messed Up About Christian Liberty and Then Mess Everyone Else Up By Pushing Their Perversion”

God forbids activities.  When someone does one of them, he’s sinning.  Whatever activity God doesn’t forbid in His Word, someone has the liberty to do that without it being sin.  That isn’t quite Christian liberty though, because someone still doesn’t have liberty if he’s in bondage.  Only Christians have liberty.  Liberty is not just about not sinning, but it’s also about pleasing God.  It’s impossible for a non-Christian, an unbeliever to stop sinning, and he can’t please God.  In Romans 8:8, the Apostle Paul writes, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”

A Christian, a true believer in Jesus Christ, pleases God because he can through the indwelling Holy Spirit.  He is now led by the Spirit of God, the same Spirit of God that led Jesus, the Son of God, while He lived on this earth.  He now has the ability not to sin.  He can do good, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.  A Christian pleases God as a son, like Jesus pleased God the Father, doing everything the Father wanted Him to do, because he has received the Spirit of adoption.  This is the liberty in which he stands.

Christian liberty is freedom to please God as a son.  The Christian wants to please God and can.  However, that liberty is not an occasion to or a base of operations for the flesh of the Christian, that he still has.  He doesn’t use liberty as a cover to do evil.  Liberty is to please God, which is the Apostle Paul’s point to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 6 through 10, where he limits the liberty of a Christian.

The first limitation on liberty, however, Paul makes in Romans 6:1-2, which is that a Christian doesn’t have the liberty to sin.  He is truly dead to sin.  He is free from sin, not free to sin.  Sin is breaking God’s law.  All unrighteousness is sin (1 John 5:17).  Whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23).

Someone does not have liberty to violate scripture.  That is sin.  He has liberty in non-scriptural issues.  That doesn’t mean that he has liberty in every non-scriptural issue, but his liberty is at least limited to non-scriptural activity.

Much of what scripture teaches requires application.  The Bible forbids corrupt communication, but it doesn’t tell us what corrupt communication is.  We are assumed by God in scripture to know that.  Just because God doesn’t say what corrupt communication is doesn’t mean a Christian has liberty to use corrupt communication.

“Be not conformed to this world” requires application.  “Abstain from fleshly lusts” requires application.  “Make no provision for the flesh” requires application.  “Mortify therefore your members upon the earth” requires application.  “That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter” requires application.  “Keepers at home” requires application.  Not being “effeminate” requires application.  “Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father” requires application.  There are dozens and dozens of these.  Christians don’t have liberty to disobey them, just because they require application.

In the context of a church, a Christian doesn’t have liberty to disobey his pastor (Hebrews 13:17, 1 Corinthians 11:1), as long as it is a non-scrriptural issue.  Of course, he obeys God rather than men (Acts 5:29), but he doesn’t have liberty to be factious (Titus 3:10-11) or cause disunity in the church (Ephesians 4:3, 1 Corinthians 1:10).  A Christian is required to fit into the body of Christ, the church (Romans 12:3; Ephesians 4:18).

There is no verse that says a Christian must go to the movie theater.  He can obey God and not go.  If a church says its members can’t attend the theater and gives good, godly reasons not to do so, a member shouldn’t go.  That shouldn’t be a problem for a Christian.  Whatever argument someone might give for attending a theater, not going to one isn’t going to stop him from living his Christian life.  This requirement is not a violation of Christian liberty.  Principles of Christian liberty can be applied.

Someone might say, scripture says nothing about going to a theater.  It’s true.  However, scripture, as I wrote above, requires application, and there are many principles that do apply.  So, a church says its members can’t go, rather than leaving it up to each family or individual member to judge.  A prospective member says, “I’ve got to have a church that allows this, because it is restricting a liberty I have,” so that he doesn’t join that church.  He looks for a church based upon its allowing its members to go to the movies.  The Apostle Paul commanded on matters of Christian liberty, be ye followers of me, imitators of me (1 Corinthians 11:1).  Paul wasn’t harming their Christian liberty by ordering them to follow the way that he handled liberties.

If the pastor says all the ushers will wear ties, that doesn’t violate scripture.  He’s not saying that you are a better person for doing it.  He’s not saying that you’ve got to wear a tie in order to get to heaven.  He’s in charge, what scripture says is “ruling,” so ushers should wear ties.  This requirement is not a violation of Christian liberty.

There are several other limitations on Christian liberty that Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 6 through 10.  Something might be good other than God, but a Christian doesn’t have liberty to be addicted to it (6:12).  In 1 Corinthians 10, it’s not just doing evil, but associating with it that a Christian doesn’t have the liberty to do.  By mere association and proximity, he could easily fall.  In 1 Corinthians 8, he doesn’t have liberty to cause a weaker brother to stumble or to violate his or someone else’s conscience.  These don’t even have to be a sin.  He doesn’t have the liberty to be a bad testimony to an unbeliever, even in something that might be permissible (10:30; Romans 14:16).

A Christian doesn’t have liberty in whatever he does except to bring glory to God (1 Corinthians 10:31).  It goes back to living like a son, that Paul emphasizes in Romans 8 and Galatians 3-5, and children are not only to obey their parents, but honor their parents.  We can know what honor is or God wouldn’t have told us to do that.  If we can judge honor, we can also judge dishonor.

Christian liberty isn’t about doing what you want to do.  It’s about doing what God wants you to do.  It’s about pleasing God out of love as a child of His.  To practice Christian liberty will require applying principles in scripture to honor and glorify Him.

What I’m writing about Christian liberty isn’t new.  The abuse of Christian liberty also isn’t new.  Paul talks about it in Galatians 5, Peter in 2 Peter 2, and Jude in his one chapter.  The grace of God can be turned into lasciviousness and that’s rampant in evangelicalism and fundamentalism today.

Many times today professing Christians will choose their church by how much liberty the church allows.  Alcohol, check.  Rock music, check.  Immodest clothing, check.  Movies, check.  Hit and miss church attendance, check.  Little to no evangelism, check.  Churches cater to this, and they call it Christian liberty.  It’s not.

I’m adding to this post, at least two more points that are important, first some might say is positive and the other negative. I reread the above and like it, believe it, but other thoughts came to mind.  A whole book could be written on this.  Whole books have been written.

A positive is what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 7, where a woman, whose husband has died, has the liberty to marry whoever she wants in the Lord.  The liberty is restricted by “in the Lord,” but the liberty is highlighted by ‘whoever she wants.’  I’m not quoting here except where I put quotations, and I’m taking liberty to do that. Biblical authors did the same.  This is a woman previously married, not a daughter still under the authority of her father, that Paul explains in the same context.

Christian liberty is a subject that relates to a biblical view, a right perspective, on the will of God.  God allows for you to do what you want to do.  You are free to eat meat, but you are also free not to eat meat.  If you want to be a vegan or a vegetarian, you are free to do that.  You can use paper or plastic.  God allows for these choices.  Principles apply — “in the Lord” — but that still allows for Christian liberty.

I talked above about attending the movie theater.  I’ve said that someone has the liberty to do that.  However, if the church says, “no,” a principle applies.  The church shouldn’t be judged for doing that either, because principles do apply.  The church has liberty to limit based on principles.  This is the historic teaching of the church.

When considering what I wrote above, I was thinking about the list of activities Paul commanded a Christian to mortify in Colossians 3:5.  God doesn’t allow uncleanness and evil concupiscience, but those have to be applied.  A church can say, no dancing.  That’s an application. There are other principles they could use, but that’s a direct application of those.  When Paul commanded, “flee fornication,” he wasn’t saying that it’s permissible to do everything short of fornication.  This is where evangelical and fundamentalist churches fall short today on Christian liberty.

I understand that someone might think that limiting Christian liberty means not having liberty.  Liberty isn’t being able to drive as close to the side of the cliff that you want.  It isn’t being able to play in the road since there is no law against it.  Liberty has a purpose. When that purpose is not fulfilled, then it isn’t liberty, but bondage.  I understand there is a paradox here and scripture is full of them.  This is something that evangelicals and many fundamentalists, it seems, are playing dumb.

The second point to which I gave thought later is the often used verse for evangelicals by Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:6, especially parking on the particular phrase, “above that which is written” (I’ve written on topics related to this many times — here, here, here, here, here, here, here).  Using selective relativism, evangelicals will say, “the Bible doesn’t say anything about that, so you’re adding to scripture — you’re above that which is written.”  The Bible doesn’t say you can’t drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, doesn’t say you can’t hip thrust, doesn’t say that you can’t wear bermuda shorts to church, but it also doesn’t say you can’t smoke crack pipes.

You are not going or moving “above that which is written” when you apply scripture in the right way.  Scripture writes that.  Nowhere does scripture prohibit abortion.  You’ve got to piece together “that which is written” to make that application.  Scripture prohibited, but not in so many words.  Evangelicals today, even by quoting 1 Corinthians 4:6 as a means of not applying scripture, show their fundamental perversion of sola scriptura, what they very often trumpet or hang on a banner in their auditoriums.  They should go back to the Westminster Confession of Faith, where it says (1:6),

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word: and that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

The Bible is to be used to interpret the world around us, that is, everything is to be seen within the framework that the Bible establishes.  You are wrong when you are not doing that.

One   Two   Three   Four   Five   Six   Seven   Eight   Nine

I missed something from Tuesday night, the night before we headed North in England.  When we drove from Oxford, we were able to return our rental car just under the wire to the Enterprise in Hammersmith, London.  I was so happy to return that car safely after two more days of driving on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car.  It was also a happy moment, because I wasn’t sure how we would return the car the next morning after it opened, and then make it to King’s Cross Station from the Hammersmith Station before our train left King’s Cross.  We caught a bus that brought up right by our flat.

The next morning we walked to the bus stop with all of our luggage.  The bus stopped, we embarked, and our oyster cards did not work for at least two of us.  We had used them up.  If you have money on a card, you touch a bright yellow card reader on entry.  I wanted to pay the bus driver.  Couldn’t.  He didn’t take cash.  I had seen people put their credit cards on the card reader, but I really wasn’t thinking.  I had not even seen a contactless card in the United States.  Mine wasn’t one.  He was growing very impatient, and then a woman stood up and volunteered to run her card for us.  She had to run two cards, one for each ticket.  It was very generous of her.  It was three pounds for two of us.  I handed her the money to pay and she wouldn’t take it.

The most interesting part to the story of the woman on the bus is that she was Moslem.  She was a fifty-ish Moslem woman, dressed in Moslem garb.  As she looked at our family, I’m sure we looked different.  My wife and two daughters wear longer skirts or dresses, past the knee, most often to the ankle on this trip.  As different as we were, it was also obvious we weren’t Moslem.  She was being kind to a non-Moslem family.  Would we have done the same for her?  I believe we would, because it is something I would do.  Was it a lesson?  I’m quite sure she knew we were American.  There’s a lot in the news about the so-called “Moslem travel ban.”  I don’t know how Moslems look at our country, but she stepped up and made a point.  Her act of generosity doesn’t make Islam true, but it for a moment it made life better on earth for our family.  My wife sat next to her and engaged her in a conversation, and as we left the bus at the Shepherd’s Bush underground station for the last time, we thanked her again.

Our oyster cards were empty, but we were leaving London and wouldn’t need them.  We bought four paper tickets to King’s Cross.  This was our first train ride in England.  I had ridden Amtrak maybe four times in the United States and train transportation is just not the same as in England.  Many more people ride train for transportation all over the UK and the rest of Europe, perhaps because of the comparative size and the fact that people drive in the United States.  Driving the car is a way of life in the modern history of the U. S.  Trains are less expensive, faster, and better in Europe.

We arrived early enough to find out where we needed to go.  We had our tickets already and a train employee directed us to our track.  There are 12 platforms at King’s Cross.  Platform 9 3/4, a fictional one, from the Harry Potter books, is there.  It’s not an actual platform, just for your information, but a sign to give the impression a platform exists.  We were sent to the wrong platform, we waited to get on that train, and someone was in our seat.  It wasn’t our train.  We were sent about 6 platforms down, where our train was waiting.  We were traveling to the York station on the Edinburgh bound train.

Even the most economic tickets on these trains are comfortable.  They aren’t extravagant, but nice.  It cost us 47.60 pounds for a two and a half our train ride from London to the middle of England.  We four sat facing each other at a table.   Out the window you see the English countryside, except at high speed.   I would compare it to the country in Pennsylvania, as far as green grass, hills, and trees.  All over England are sheep, much more than what I’ve seen in the United States.  Like everywhere else, everything is old too.  You look out and see very old places all over, which is different than the U. S.  A conductor comes through the aisle and checks your ticket.  A very small cafe on the first deck offers beverages and snacks.

When we arrived in York, the train station was near our “car hire.”  We rented a car for one day there at a local place, which was less expensive than the chain car rentals.  I could walk there less than half a mile from the station, and I passed through an archway of an ancient wall to get there.  It was the official entrance into the original city, I found, and the way the queen enters whenever she might visit York, which isn’t much, but there was a photo of her in the rental place.  My car wasn’t ready, so my family continued at a Starbucks at the station and I walked out to explore.  I walked up some old rock steps to the top of the wall.  This was the original wall of York, some parts of which go back to Roman times.  I walked along it and could easily see the train station from there.

I finally got the car, met my family at the station, and drove to our house.  This was the only night on the whole trip that we got a regular place to stay, but it was still the York Priory Guest House on the fourth floor, almost an old attic by means of a very narrow stair case all the way up.  Our room was the family room, so it had enough bedding for all four of us.  We purchased the English breakfast for three for the next morning.  We got back in the car and drove forty minutes North to Thirsk, UK, where we parked in this small English town near the veterinary clinic of Alf Wight.  Who is he?  He’s better known as James Herriot.

My wife and I first came across the books of James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small.  They are wonderful, very humorous multiple volumes.  We didn’t know what kind of best sellers they were and how popular they were also in the UK, where they originated.  Then we began watching the BBC series by the same name that dramatized Herriot stories.  The town of his actual veterinary is Thirsk, which is now a museum.  The museum is essentially the clinic set up just like it was when Alf Wight, aka, Herriot, was alive.  There was a short film and one section of the museum showed how the series itself was made.  Just down the road was the church where Wight and his wife were married.  My daughters walked into town and my wife and I went into that church building, an Anglican church.  Every one of these old Anglican church buildings in England are a bit of a museum.  First, they are very old and there is a lot of local history that goes back a long ways.

We met back up in town to have supper at the White Horse cafe for our second and last fish and chips experience.  It didn’t match our first, which is the best I’ve ever had, but it was very good.  An oddity, but also a throw-back for me was our elderly waitress asking us if we wanted bread and butter with the fish and chips.  We said yes, and she brought us white bread, cut diagonally, with a thin spread of butter.  I had not seen anything like that at a restaurant, or even offered, but it sent me back to my elementary, public school cafeteria in a small town in Indiana.  The meals very often came with bread and butter identical to what she gave us.  It was my only connection.  Did anyone else grow up with a public school cafeteria that served white bread, maybe Wonder Bread, with just butter spread on it?  I especially remember it as a side for days you could choose between chicken noodle and chili soup.  It seemed as normal as anything for the waitress to bring that to our table.

Then we drove about 25 minutes to the town of Ripon, a very small one even though three times the size of Thirsk.  We witnessed the country scenery of Yorkshire between the two small English towns.  We went to Ripon to attend Wednesday evening church service at an evangelical Baptist church.  We arrived at least an hour and a half before the service, so once we located the building, we went into town.  We got some coffee at a shop that was just closing right in town, and these people were very interested.  There was a lot of history to Ripon, but they don’t get visitors from America like bigger towns in the UK, so they wanted to talk.  If you read the Wikipedia article I linked to, you’ll see a lot about the town that is interesting, but they said the city was most known for its hornblower every night once at each of the four corners of the obelisk right in the middle of town.  That night after church, we heard the horn blowing as we were leaving.

I wrote earlier about the church there.  About 15 gathered, including us.  It was a very worshipful time.  We were the second people there and the pastor arrived, who had just retired.  Another elderly Christian man taught out of Ephesians, who I heard later had sat under the ministry of Martin Lloyd Jones, was discipled and married by him.  We sang old hymns, every verse and slowly, and prayed long.  They were in no hurry.  It was how we would have really liked it.  I think we were a great encouragement to them.

We talked for quite awhile afterwards, then left to get back to the York Priory house.  The next morning we would have our second English breakfast.

Part One

I’ve written on the motivation for evangelism already this year (here), but in light of the dust storm of evangelism, I want to revisit.   In part one, I wrote that evangelicals in our area have a goal of numerical growth, making their group get bigger.  They are motivated by getting bigger and all that goes along with that.  If they do get bigger, they claim that as evidence of God’s working.

Someone who would seem on the other end of the spectrum from the evangelicals, Steven Anderson, also presents unfounded numerical success as a motivation to his adherents for “soulwinning,” which isn’t biblical evangelism.

In both above cases, little to no evangelism occurs.  Numerical success is the motive and different strategies are employed to reach that same goal.  Evangelism is difficult.  People don’t want to evangelize.  In both examples, it really isn’t being done, because both parties are missing the point.

A dust storm of evangelism arises from either no motivation, a lack of motivation, or the wrong motivation for evangelism, so evangelism isn’t done, doesn’t take place.  The impression is that it is getting done because people see numbers.  It isn’t.  More damage is done than good because of this dust storm created, indicative of a lot of activity, leaving an impression that things are going great.

Evangelism is preaching the gospel. That’s what the word means.  Evangelism is a compound word with the words “good news” and “proclaim” in it.  The good news is that people can be saved.  Evangelism is proclaiming to an individual or a group how that God can and will save them.  Evangelism occurs when a believer preaches the gospel to an unbeliever.  There are many unbelievers compared to much fewer believers.  Believers don’t lack in recipients or targets for evangelism.  They are everywhere in every direction local, regional, statewide, throughout the country and the world.

Actual evangelism is supposed to be the means of the numerical growth of the church.  Scripture at least implies church growth as a motivation in scripture, just not the most common or obvious one.  It is an indirect motivation. The Jerusalem church grew through evangelism.  The Apostle Paul said the edifying of the body of Christ occurs through the work of the ministry (Eph 4), and the primary work of the ministry is evangelism.

Even with numerical growth tied to evangelism, the evangelist can’t take credit for it.  The Apostle Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians 3 that God gives the increase, not the ones who sow or water in evangelism.  If evangelism is done according to scripture, God gives the increase, not men.  The two strategies I mentioned above and in the first post are not of God.  They aren’t God giving the increase.  Whatever results are produced through the man-made methods implemented, God doesn’t get the glory from those, even if actual conversion is produced, which is unlikely.

A church should grow through evangelism, not other means.  That is the way for churches to grow, but growth isn’t presented as a motivation for evangelism.  It is presented as a reality, but not as a motivation, perhaps because very often churches are not growing to the extent the membership wants it to.  They can’t give up on evangelism just because they aren’t seeing the results they want to see.  Growth won’t sustain someone as a motive for evangelism.  It is exciting when people get saved, but when they don’t, that shouldn’t stop church members from evangelizing.

What should motivate believers to evangelize is simple.  The first is obedience to the Lord’s command, but this is also tied into love.  We love God by keeping His commandments.  He commanded us to evangelize, so by obeying that command, believers are obedient, but they are also loving.  In Romans 1, Paul says he worshiped God in the gospel, which I believe means that He was worshiping God by preaching the gospel.  This is how someone presents his body a living sacrifice unto God.  If I’m not evangelizing, I don’t think I’m obedient and I don’t think I’m loving God.  We love Him because He first loved us, which is to say that we will evangelize if we are saved.

God is seeking for true worshipers and I want Him to have more worshipers too.  Everyone should worship Him, but they won’t without the gospel.  I have to preach the gospel to someone if I want him to become a true worshiper, so I do.  This still relates to obedience and love.  I want God to be worshiped because I love Him.  He deserves it.  He deserves all worship and praise.

You can’t love your neighbor as yourself if he’s not saved and you don’t preach the gospel to him.  Loving others is another reason.  This is tied into corollaries, like people going to Hell.  Allowing someone to go to Hell without warning is not loving.  We’re responsible for warning people, who are headed to destruction.

I don’t have any other actual motives for evangelism than obeying God, and then loving God and others.  I have other motives for the obedience and the love, but not for evangelism.  God is good.  God’s way is best.  Evangelism is success, because doing what God says is success.

I’m happier when I’m obedient, because I’m fulfilled.  Fulfillment comes from fellowship with Christ.  I fellowship with Christ by conforming to His image.  I fellowship with Him by being like Him.

All of my motivation starts in my imagination.  I have to think about it according to scripture.  The feelings proceed from the right thinking.  My feelings follow my actions.  I don’t feel right until I’m doing it and God gives me that peace and joy as fruit of the Spirit.  I’m submitting to the Spirit, not quenching Him, and my attitude becomes what it should be.

A dust storm of evangelism arises from no motivation to a lack of motivation.  If people will not receive the right motive, salvation should be questioned.  This is an unfaithful person.  He’s not faithful to God, because he’s not faithful to God’s Word, which is how someone is faithful.  This is the correct view of the gospel, that it changes lives.  It changes someone into the image of Christ.  He will evangelize like Christ.  If he doesn’t, and he doesn’t show that Christlikeness, I doubt whether he is a saved person.  I’m in Christ and He is in me and that produces His image in my life.  I expect that of every Christian.

Progressives deconstruct authoritative documents into constituent parts for the purpose of reinterpreting them.  They assign a different meaning by reading into the words of the text.  This makes a document elastic or flexible.  By doing so, they can force the Constitution of the United States into what they want it to mean.  This takes away the authority of this founding document.  Instead of adhering, they do whatever they want to do and justify it with a progressive philosophy.  This strategy or technique, most might not be aware, traces to religious origins.

My wife, two daughters, and I have returned from Europe.  We’re back.  I’m not going to write this whole series, as anticipated. It’s fine.  I couldn’t write it for several reasons.  There is no script or no auditions for a Europe trip one has never taken.  My normal vacation is in fact a vacation, not so much activity:  sleeping in, leisurely pace, a little sightseeing here or there.  This was a total outlier.

Adiaphora is not a biblical word.  It is a transliteration of a Greek word not found in the New Testament. It’s more of a philosophical word that has now become a theological, practical category.  It means, “indifferent things,” and in technical language, “disputable matters,” and refers to what some might call, “Romans 14 issues,” speaking of “doubtful disputations” (KJV) in Romans 14:1.  Someone isn’t to judge another believer in disputable matters.  What matters though are disputable?

Evangelicals, compared to fundamentalists or separatists, categorize more matters as disputable.  This list is growing too.  More beliefs and practices are disputable than ever.  How does this happen?  Aren’t scriptural teachings and practices set in stone?  The Bible means what it means and it doesn’t change in its meaning?  Isn’t that liberalism, a sort of loose construction of scripture, or progressivism?

Evangelicals move the goalposts on adiaphora, and it’s no wonder, if you read one of the more prominent evangelicals in the world, D. A. Carson in the very first sentence of his journal article in 2015, named “On Disputable Matters”:

Every generation of Christians faces the need to decide just what beliefs and behavior are morally mandated of all believers, and what beliefs and behavior may be left to the individual believer’s conscience.

That sentence alone could open a can of worms.  Does every generation of believers need to decide what beliefs and practices are mandated, or has that already been settled?  Do these things change?

Todd Friel deals with adiaphora in a recent session of his Wretched TV, titled, “Principles of Christian Liberty.”  In a recent weekly interview with Phil Johnson, Friel says that Phil Johnson greatly influenced what he says in this presentation (maybe speaking of this program with Phil).  Two points stood out to me from Friel that reminded me of the subjectivity or relativism of evangelical Christian liberty, what they believe Christians are still allowed or now allowed to do, that at one time they were not.

First, Friel said that Christians have liberty in “non-essentials.”  This is where evangelicals move the goalposts on adiaphora.  They are not telling the truth on this.  It seems like they are lying.  I don’t think Friel himself is lying.  He’s not a theological heavyweight and he’s now heard this mantra of non-essentials long enough that he thinks it’s actually in the Bible without providing a single reference for it.  There isn’t a solitary reference in scripture that categorizes adiaphora as non-essentials.  Christians don’t have liberty to disobey anything in God’s Word.

Evangelicals have, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, ranked doctrines on matter of importance, which justifies unbelief and sin.  I say this is moving the goalpost.  Adiaphora is about disputable matters, which in other words is something not a clear application of scripture.  A common example in the New Testament is eating meat offered unto idols (cf. 1 Corinthians 8-10).

Second, Friel uses the example of “musical styles” as adiaphora.  He’s saying that Christians have liberty in musical styles, that musical styles are disputable, so one cannot judge them as wrong or sinful.  This is where evangelicals have voided about every possible application of scripture, allowing them to have liberty in almost everywhere to live how they want.  As a result, they are worldly, fleshly, and sensual, all of which are forbidden.  They are unwilling to make application of scripture in almost every possible way.

As an irony, as I wrote this post, I looked at Phil Johnson’s twitter feed and noticed his retweet of an article on an interview of Wynton Marsalis, who berates rap music to Jonathan Capeheart of the Washington Post.  He appreciates the Marsalis judgment of what seems a disputable matter to Friel.  It isn’t a consistent position.  Of course we have to judge music.  Of course not all musical styles can be used in worship.  God can’t be worshiped with something sensual, fleshly, worldly, or profane.  Using pop music to worship God does more damage to the knowledge of God among men than most false doctrinal statements.

In the Christian Liberty session with Friel, done at the G3 conference, Friel asks Johnson for an example of a Christian liberty, and he says, “Dancing.”  Is dancing a liberty?  I would judge that as a poor example by Phil, because Christians don’t have liberty in just any kind of dancing, actually in most kinds Christians don’t have liberty.  Earlier Jesus said that the truth shall set you free (John 8:32), and He was saying “freedom from sin.”  How many forms of dancing are sin?  No one is require to be circumcised or observe dietary restrictions anymore, so Johnson’s usage of Galatians 5 doesn’t work.  What people today know to be dancing involves numbers of different ways to sin.  Liberty is being set free from sin, not liberty to sin.  This is a major error of most of evangelicalism, including the conservative evangelicals, like Phil Johnson.

It has become almost impossible in evangelicalism to disobey many passages of scripture, because they make it impossible to apply those passages to anything in the real world.  Almost all applications are disputable to them, especially where it steps on their own toes.  Same sex marriage has become disputable in much of evangelicalism because of this very practice.  Friel and Johnson both feed this practice in order to protect this convenient view in evangelicalism.

The Bible does not teach a doctrine of non-essentials.  We don’t have liberty in non-essentials.  The doctrine of non-essentials proceeds from postmodern uncertainty.  When Christians have established for centuries certain doctrine and practice, it can’t suddenly come into play, just because of a slide in the culture.  It doesn’t become disputable, and, therefore, permissible, just as a matter of convenience.

I notice that women wear something worse than long underwear in public now.  Now evangelicals wear leggings, what was once hosiery worn under the outer garments, in public.  That’s a disputable matter.  What was once nudity is now accepted and on what basis?  Adiaphora.  This is moving the goalpost, friends.

Our church doesn’t advertise a dress code for our services, contrary to the recent fad where churches address it on their websites.  It’s very popular.  It now seems like vital, almost required, information for churches, which would likely sneer at churches that teach on dress or even have scriptural dress standards.  Almost exclusively they want you to know that when you come to their church services, you can dress like you want.

My wife, two of our daughters, and I travel to Europe in two weeks.  Today I read an evangelical tweet that mentioned a church in London, called Gracelife, so I clicked on the website and of the very few words on its front page are these two sentences:

We’re content-driven in our choice of songs, and choose a range of music that allows us to express our worship joyfully and respectfully as 21st Century worshippers. There is no particular dress code, and children are very welcome in the service. 

Unmitigated musical style and dress stand as essential information at Gracelife, an ideology elevated to a sacramental status in evangelical churches today.

Usually you will see similar language in a section churches title, What To Expect.  When I searched that phrase with “Baptist” and “dress,” I got 379,000 results.  The top site on the first page included, What Should I Wear?  “There is not a strict dress code at Grace Baptist Church for our members or guests.”  Next:  “We invite you to come as you are!”  Third:  “There is not a dress code at Pacific Baptist Church for members or guests.”  After that:  “At Stockton Baptist Church we don’t have a dress code.”

If you replace “dress” with “dress code,” you still get 117,000 results.  That many church web pages use the words “dress code” in their materials. I haven’t looked, but I don’t think it is likely that any of those 117,000 say they have a dress code.  I’m not going to try, but  I don’t think I’ll find one.

I’ve got two main points I want to confront regarding the no dress code mantra repeated on numerous contemporary church websites.

Speaking in general of evangelism and discipleship, the highlight of no dress code uncovers an unbiblical philosophy of ministry.  You’ve heard, “Nothing is sacred anymore.”  Church very often isn’t sacred either.  Church is supposed to be about God.  It can be treated as sacred by how someone dresses in a gathering to worship God.

I think we should assume that the dress information on these websites targets unbelievers, attempting to attract them or lure them with something they would prefer about church, that the path really is strewn with roses.  The Jews seek after signs and the Greeks after wisdom.  Churches aren’t to adapt their methods to signs and wisdom.  They are to depend on God, which is to depend on the truth.  Love is in the truth. The change is supernatural.  It doesn’t make sense.  It’s approached by faith.  The problem isn’t intellect; it’s rebellion.  The truth isn’t the enemy of biblical evangelism.

Methods depending on human means glorify man.  It’s not tolerable for believers, since the point of the church is to glorify Christ.  Christ isn’t welcoming people into comfort.  All of these offers that clash with the biblical message won’t help someone to receive a biblical message.  They are a form of bait and switch.  Unless someone is changing the gospel, the message of the gospel isn’t congruent with comfort.

Pragmatic church growth methodology baits with comfort and then switches to surrender.  It makes salvation about you, like a form of therapy, hoping to later see it become about God.  It must start with God and then keep going about God.

Jesus put deny self, take up your cross, and count the cost up front.  The road is a narrow road.  You don’t encourage salvation by offering present comfort.

God is seeking for true worshipers.  Worship is sacrifice.  Sacrifice gives something up.  What you want becomes what God wants, not what you want.  Redemption isn’t redeeming the outcome of your desires, but redeeming your desires.  Since worship is giving something up, an understanding of worship isn’t aided by turning it into what you get.

Comforts of the flesh tend toward the flesh.  You can’t and won’t flesh people into the kingdom.  Paul calls it carnal weaponry.

Receiving God must be receiving the God, the one and only God.  Receiving God isn’t receiving a god that is attractive to us.  People should expect dress that honors God.  God is of the highest value.  He shouldn’t be lowered in men’s estimation as a means of attraction.  God saves us not by diminishing Himself, but by elevating us.   Men are elevated by having God be of the highest value.

Genesis 3 and several times hence, including with some great detail in the New Testament, teach about dress.  It matters.  Church is about conforming to God.  Unbelievers shouldn’t be given the impression that church is about conforming to men.  Churches shouldn’t be ashamed of the truth.  If dress means something, which scripture says it does, the world should be told the truth about dress.  It’s not acceptable to misrepresent dress to attract unbelievers.

When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, He wasn’t saying, your worship doesn’t matter.   Blowing through four husbands and shacking up with a fifth was confronted, not avoided because a marriage code would turn her off.  Jesus confronted her with boundaries of God’s law.  A right relationship with God doesn’t start with concessions to the flesh, as if this is a negotiation.  There is nothing to apologize for.  God has something to say about dress.  We’re happy with everything He says, and you should be too.  If you’re not, that’s on you, not on God, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Christianity shouldn’t present a Christianity the world will like.  It should present Christianity.  It’s all good.  True Christians aren’t ashamed or embarrassed about any of it.  Christians should like Christianity and not be unwelcome to any of it.  It’s all good.

True Christians also understand meaning.  They know what dress means.  Very often, the world knows what dress means too.  Exhibiting a lack of discernment or wisdom about dress doesn’t speak better of Christianity.

Love is in the truth.  We are not loving unbelievers by masking the truth.  Love isn’t offering something other than the truth.  Love isn’t allowing for unbiblical behavior as a means of showing unbelievers how generous believers can be.

Christianity isn’t picking and choosing what people will follow and what they won’t.  It’s changing man into the image of God.  It’s not just purifying hearts, but cleansing hands.  The church is the church and it shouldn’t be presented otherwise.

I have three blog posts I’ve really wanted to write, but they are difficult to write without spending a lot of time.  I’m a percentage done on all three and can’t finish any of them.  I’ve been in this condition for three weeks.  I’m still writing posts though.  Today, I make it easy on myself for another day by attempting to put myself in a chart done by Tyler Robbins on SharperIron, which he has titled, “A REPORT CARD ON BAPTIST FUNDAMENTALISM IN 2018.”  People at SharperIron have attempted to do this on various occasions and I knew that comments would explode for this post.

What I’m going to do here is attempt to put myself in his chart where I fit and see which category I must be of his four categories:  fundigelicals, “movement fundamentalists, cultic fundamentalists, and reformed-ish fundamentalists.  I have said that I’m not a fundamentalist, but I’m sure most would say that I am.  I really am not, but there isn’t another category for me by Tyler Robbins.  He doesn’t have evangelical, fundamentalist, and then whatever.  I think I’m whatever, but I’d be happy to hear explained why I’m not.  I’ll use his descriptors in the left hand column to place me in a category.


Leadership and Style

Here our church is dual elder and collaborative approach, which he has as reformed-ish.  We have two pastors and I don’t consider the other pastor my assistant.  I don’t see “assistant pastor” in scripture, but I do see multiple elder.  We have two.  We work together at this.  In a typical month six different men will preach/teach.

Education

Here “movement” fundamentalist and reformed-ish are the same, excellent, systematic doctrine emphasized.  I don’t think anyone who listens to me preach or our other men, watches our conference, or reads my blog would think we’re characterized like the other two categories, fundigelicals or cultic fundamentalists.  I know we’re not uneven quality, shallow, and indoctrinating.

Ecclesiology

I would have to understand what the descriptions mean here.  I’d be glad to take the scripture, biblical and systematic theology, to any ecclesiology of any of the four categories.  Inbred Landmarkism?  I have to guess that he means men who have mimicked each other in their view of the church, apparently proceeding from mid-nineteenth century Southern Baptist church leaders, not the Bible or even historic.  English separatism isn’t cultic?  I would debate this any day.

Does parachurch fall in here?  What kind of authority do these institutions have?  Why are they so powerful in fundamentalism?

Soteriology

On his chart, I have to be “movement” fundamentalist, to be honest.  I don’t see them fight for the gospel like our church does.  They also don’t emphasize lordship, that I see.  I’ve been generally attacked by “movement” fundamentalists on the gospel.

Separation

Tyler misses it here.  I don’t see cultic fundamentalists today with a major emphasis on separation, if he’s including Paul Chappell, Clarence Sexton, and that crowd.  I don’t see Detroit as exemplary.  Central is better as fundamentalists go. Hobby horses, I would guess, would include music.  Central has that hobby horse too, so where does music come into play?  I can’t find myself in this category.

Does church discipline fall under separation?  I was in movement fundamentalism and I never saw it practiced, ever.  Ever.

Central Concern

I could only be reformed-ish fundamentalist here.  We are building the kingdom through biblical evangelism, making disciples — no gimmicks.  Our concern is glory to God through faithfulness to His Word.

Sanctification

I could only be reformed-ish fundamentalist here, based on his description.

Preaching

I could only be with his reformed-ish fundamentalist description — our preaching is 90 percent exposition.

Perhaps two other categories could be added, the so-called cultural issues, which could include complementarianism, or no?   You could also include worship.  Which of the four categories keep a high view of God in the worship?  I wouldn’t put all of the reformed-ish in that description.  Not all of movement fundamentalism is either.  Does that mean nothing?  Or is it a hobby horse?

Tyler did the best he could.  It’s a tough task that will be criticized by others.  Everyone has a bias.  I think he’s open to correct where others point out that bias.

On most of these, Tyler would have me, our church, at reformed-ish fundamentalist.  He might feel the necessity to call us cultic.  We use and defend the King James Version.  We separate over every teaching of scripture.  We are local only in ecclesiology.  Where do you think we fit?  Use your name and give an explanation.  Most anonymous comments will be deleted.

Among all the days of the week, I’m most regular on Wednesday for door-to-door evangelism.  I go every week on Wednesday.  I should go more, but I make sure I go every week by scheduling it for our church every Wednesday and leading it myself. Even though I schedule it and I do go, I am admitting that I still struggle with motivation.  It both makes sense and doesn’t make sense to me, which I’ll explain.