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Church Planting Methodology: Where Should a New Church Meet?
In relation to church planting, where should a new church meet? On this blog we have, in the past, learned the history of how Bethel Baptist Church in El Sobrante, CA was started by Jesus Christ; see part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 on that encouraging topic. Grace and Truth Baptist Church is a new church planting work in San Francisco that is seeking to follow the Lord and obey and practice all of Scripture. They currently do not have a building to meet, and the preacher there–a friend of mine for many years–had discussed the qustion with me, and asked us to pray for them, as they sought a place to meet. I asked the advice of a number of Baptist preachers, pastors, and missionaries / evangelists concerning the pluses and minuses of a variety of options concerning places to meet. With their permission, I have shared their responses below. Please feel free to comment on these responses and share any Biblical thoughts or practical experiences you have concerning them. (The response have been lightly edited for things like grammar and material that was not related to this question in this post was removed.) I asked the following question:
Church Planting Methodology:
Where Should A New Church-Plant Meet? The Question
… I am wondering if you have any thoughts on the meeting place for a new church plant’s meeting place. What are the advantages of renting a place in:
1.) A store front-type location, vs.
2.) A church building that is in use by a different congregation, vs.
3.) A home?
In terms of #2, do you have any thoughts on a church property that is by a weak Baptist religious organization, vs. some other religious organization (Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, etc.) or even a cult meeting house (Seventh-Day Adventists that do not use their building on the Lord’s Day)?
I am wondering if a neo-evangelical or even modernistic Baptist congregation that allowed a separatist Baptist church-plant to use its facility could end up confusing visitors to the new separatist church plant. Certainly nobody would want people to end up joining a cult or becoming a Pentecostal by meeting in a church building of those religions, but perhaps the differences would be more obvious and that would be less likely than with a compromised Baptist congregation offering its meeting place (?) I am wondering if many people would not be willing to meet in a home (although Biblically there is nothing wrong with it).
So any Biblical exegesis, application of Biblical principles, or other Biblically-based ideas you have would be appreciated. Feel free to share this email with someone else if you think that that third party brother would have some good advice here. …
Church Planting Methodology:
Where Should A New Church-Plant Meet? Reply #1
Just my thoughts based on what I see in the Scriptures and what I have experienced. The place is not the main thing, but the assembly. Therefore, if you start assembling at your house that would be great, or another brother’s house, that is good. If you and the members decide to rent a facility, then, together as a church you can decide to do that and finance that as a church body (Amen). If you decide to rent a space (commercial space or have some type of agreement for a space with another “church” or religious entity – that too is fine (remember Solomon’s porch, synagogues, and the school of Tyrannus – were places that facilitated a temporary meeting place for the churches) – then rent it out as a church, do your best NOT to assume the payment of the rent alone BUT function as a church body (rent it together as a church). THEN, if and when the Lord would add to your assembly – a more suitable and stable place could be acquired (again, at that point you will move on to a building – as a church body, purchasing the building, etc). I see no problem using a SDA building, space, or hotel conference room, nursing home lobby, library hall, community hall, etc. Religious or not. It is the assembly that matters – not the meeting place, per se.
Where Should A New Church Plant Meet? Reply #2
Hi,
I wouldn’t like renting a false religion place when it wasn’t meeting. I would rather have the storefront. Meeting in the home, I would do that too.
Where Should A New Church Plant Meet? Reply #3
Meeting in SDA building wasn’t really my original plan. But I’m in a market that is high priced with very few options, and it has worked. We don’t really have any contact with the SDAs here. Most of them are from Africa, as we have a large group of refugees/immigrants in [town]. We use their building on Sunday and for the most part it has worked. The positives are that it is a place to meet that usually is inexpensive, with very little setup, and we put signage out on Sundays to limit confusion. We also put our hymn books and some Bibles in the pews and remove theirs in setting up. We are also careful to leave things better than we found them. So we haven’t worn out our welcome.
As far as negatives, for the most part they keep things kinda tidy but there is often some clean up or cleaning to do before Sunday morning. Also, the building here is rather old.
I think the biggest challenge is communicating to people where your church is. I say clearly that we rent the 7th Day Building on Sundays. Or if we do advertising I put the address and underneath “also the SDA Building.”
Also depending upon how strict your SDA group is they might ask you to not serve pork if you have a meal there.
We have a different building where we try to do special functions like special meetings. We will have a Good Friday fellowship at the other venue. It provides a neutral place for people to invite friends to hear the gospel. Just an idea. We also do a turducken feast in November. Last year it brought over 40 visitors to hear the gospel. My point you don’t have to be limited by a building. We still use multiple locations. It’s not easy but is what we have to work with.
In the summer we do a lot outdoors BBQ’s (it is amazing who will show up for an hotdog and hamburger and some friendship), outreach and midweek Bible Study/prayer meetings.
Unfortunately, people do like an identity with a building. So that in itself is a negative; curb appeal is a big help in church planting but not always possible.
Lastly I will say that a large number of Baptist churches in [our state in the USA] used an SDA building in the beginning. Some had good experience some not. I know of one where some of the SDA members started attending the Baptist church and realized the error that they were being taught hence they lost their welcome. That’s not a bad thing; I try to always have a plan B. I think that if something like that happens God will provide for the next step.
On a personal note we are praising the Lord here. We have almost finished paying off the parsonage and property we have, so we are getting close to having our own building as the Lord provides.
Where Should A New Church Plant Meet? Reply #4
Just prayed that God would guide and direct you in this matter.
I think each option you listed can have its pros and cons depending on the community and culture of the people you are trying to reach.
A store front can be more visible, but it can often give the vibes of rinky-dink. It could also be a bit more pricey.
A church building that is used by another group can give off the feeling of being “churchy,” but it can put off some people that don’t want to go in a church building. I know of a church planter in [a place] that is using a 7th Day Adventist building. You could ask his opinion on how it is working … However, at the end of the day a building is just a building.
A home can be a good place to hold a Bible study, but I think in today’s culture it could put a great many people off. Have you considered something more neutral such as a community center, school function room, or something similar?
Some practical things to consider when seeking a place to rent:
– location, location, location: easy access, parking, will some people be put off by the surrounding area?
– facilities in the building: kitchen, disabled access, parking
– how long will you be able to meet in that location
When I was looking for a place to rent, I prayed about it and then just started calling different facilities to see where the open door might be. We had a fairly easy decision, because our current location was the only available place to rent.
When I sought the Lord about where to plant a church, I also considered the need of the area. Was there a gospel preaching church in the community? If so, were they active in evangelism and discipleship?
Various thoughts: within the bounds of Scripture, Paul and Barnabas were sent out from an assembly where they were faithfully ministering. Acts 12. Paul adapted how he lived and ministered for the sake of the Gospel, 1 Cor 9:19-23. Paul immediately obeyed the Lord’s leading, Acts 16:10.
I trust God will make the way clear and plain for you.
Where Should A New Church Plant Meet? Reply #5
Good morning … I have done all 3 of these.
You have some considerations…
- if you are looking to save money…the home is best.
- If you are looking at most appealing for people to walk into off the street … another church building
- If you are looking to start from scratch … I prefer Jesus’ model.
Win people one by one … meet in the house of the key man … man of peace. This will be the person who is the common connection between the ones you are working with and the home will be no problem because they all know this man.
Then keep reaching key men and meeting in different homes with those in that connection group.
Finally combine the groups once you have people saved and committed to following Christ. Now you look for a meeting place.
By far I prefer Jesus’ method … although I realize this is not the American way.
Hope it makes some sense.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Church Planting Methodology: Questions About The Answers
I appreciate the Baptist brethren in Christ who took the time to share these answers with me. In relation to their responses, the following questions come up.
Are there issues about associations in relation to meeting in a place that pertains to a false religion? It is true that Solomon’s porch, synagogues, and the school of Tyrannus (mentioned in response #1) were not places associated with Christianity, but none of them were the Temple of Diana, either. Solomon’s porch and the synagogues were associated with the God of Israel, while the school of Tyrannus was not associated with a specific false religion. It looks like response #2 shares those concerns, in contrast to response #3, which is willing to meet in the building owned by a cult, the Seventh-Day Adventist “Church.”
Is there a difference between utilizing the meeting place of a cult (Seventh-Day Adventism, Mormonism, Oneness Pentecostalism) and the meeting place where there are disobedient brethren (non-separatist evangelicals)? How much difference does it make if the people in the false religion, or the disobedient brethren, are around (Sunday meeting) or not (Sabbath worshippers)? Does Paul preaching in synagogues after Christ had already established His church and turned away from Israel as His institution help answer this question?
How does the question of “curb appeal” factor in? Scripture does not teach that one has to have a building at all, but does meeting in a building rather than a home relate to loving one’s neighbor as oneself? How much of a factor is it that more people will be willing to visit in a church building than in a home? Is that even true? (Response #4 suggests it is not necessarily the case). How much of a factor is being “rinky-dink” (as response #4 brings up)?
Response #3 referred to the practices of a number of Baptist churches in that brother’s state. What lessons can be learned from Baptist history on this question? Response #3 also seemed to lean more towards a “go and invite to church” versus “Go ye into all the world and preach” (Mark 16:15) philosophy. How does the question of whether the assembly is a place geared to evangelize the lost, versus a place to edify and equip the saints so they can go into the world and preach to the lost (Ephesians 4:12), impact the question of a meeting place? How is the question of a meeting place affected if a church is seeking to grow by making disciples who can knock on doors and evangelize themselves, versus a church having an emphasis on inviting many children into the building by giving them candy and toys, and inviting targeted groups of adults into the building with various special events and give-aways?
The point in response #4 about building facilities, such as parking, a kitchen, and disabled access are important. I have no idea what laws and regulations relate to a church meeting in someone’s home. Does the home need to be ADA compliant and have wheelchair access (for example)? Does it need to have a certain number of fire extinguishers?
Response #4 also brought up the question of the surrounding area. How do factors such as the crime rate, or racial demographics, impact a meeting place’s location?
How much of a factor is how long one plans to meet, in God’s sovereign timing, at a particular place?
Response #5 was the most different, and, it seems, was advocating something where the method had the most significance. While responses #1-4 expressed a variety of levels of agreement and disagreement, in general the idea was that the location was not all that important (with the exception of some responses arguing that one should not meet in the building of a false religion). However, response #5 is arguing that a specific model is found in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. Who would want to do something other than what Christ did?
In relation to response #5, reference was made to Luke 10:6-7:
And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again. And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.
Does this verse prove that we should be looking for a key man in whose house a church plant should meet? The passage refers to Christ sending out 70 disciples to evangelize Israel. Were churches established in these places, and, if not, how does that affect the application of this passage? Are there dispensational factors here we need to consider? Does the pattern change from the Gospels into Acts and the Epistles? Do we see the evangelists in Acts looking for a “son of peace” in this way? In light of the broad use of the Biblical “son of” language, how much should we conclude from the “son of peace” language? Is there a difference between simply preaching to “every creature” (Mark 16:15) and focusing on reaching key men? Are they inclusive of each other or exclusive, and to what degree the one or the other? In a big city can we be seeking to reach “every creature,” yet meeting in a home not be an issue, because everyone coming to church knows the “son of peace”?
Church Planting Methodology: What Do You Think?
What do you think? How should church planting ministry be undertaken?
–TDR
Hebrew Shema / Deuteronomy 6:4-6 Chant / Trope / Cantillated
Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema, is the most famous verse of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible for Jews. The Hebrew text has a complex system of accent marks that provide exegetically significant information; in addition to the accents providing one of four levels of disjunction in the text (that is, providing pauses that divide words with four levels of strength), or emphasizing conjunction (that words are to be read together). The Lord Jesus affirmed that God would preserve the Hebrew vowels and accent marks until heaven and earth pass away-the words of the Old Testament themselves, not merely the consonants, are inspired:
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matthew 5:18)
Historically, the inspiration of the vowels has been affirmed, and receiving the Biblical testimony to the inspiration of the words, not the consonants only, of the Old Testament is apologetically and intellectually defensible.
So what does the Shema and the following two verses sound like when sung or chanted following the Hebrew accent marks? You can hear the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) in a synagogue, but if you do not want to go to one, and want to hear the following passage of the Torah chanted:
Deut. 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
Deut. 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
Deut. 6:6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
Then please watch or listen to the following brief video:
or watch the video on Rumble by clicking here or on YouTube by clicking here.
Whether or not one learns to fluently sing or chant, students of the Hebrew Bible should learn to identify the Hebrew accent marks, just like they can identify English periods, commas, and semicolons. Courses in Hebrew should teach the people of the God of Israel and those who trust in Israel’s Messiah the accents, rather than ignoring them and teaching only the consonants and vowels.
This blog has pointed out in the past that the Authorized, King James Version does a good job representing the Hebrew accents in English (although the punctuation system in English is different and simpler than that of Hebrew).
You might be able to have more doors open in witnessing to Jews if you memorize at least the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4, in Hebrew. If Then share with them the truth in the “Truth from the Torah” pamphlet. If you have one of the Jewish evangelistic shirts here, by memorizing the Shema you will be able to chant the Hebrew text on the front of your shirt.
If you can at least read the Hebrew alphabet it should not be that hard to memorize this passage–the greatest commandment of all, according to the resurrected Messiah, Son of God and Son of Man, the Lord Jesus (Matthew 22:37-38). Just copy the audio of the video to your phone or other electronic device and get your device to play the Hebrew over and over again, and before you know it you will have the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) and the greatest commandment (Deuteronomy 6:5) memorized in Hebrew. Put these glorious words in your heart (Deuteronomy 6:6), where you can savor them, love them, and ever the more obey them.
–TDR
God Does NOT Love Everyone? An Error of Hyper-Calvinism, part 3 of 3
Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? Hyper-Calvinism says “yes,” but Scripture says “no!” In part 1 and part 2 of this series, I summarized the first portions of my study God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error. This final part will summarize the final portion of God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error, to which readers are encouraged to refer for more information.
Hyper-Calvinism Employs Exegetical and Logical Fallacies
When Arguing God Does Not Love the Non-Elect:
Texts on God’s Hatred
Hyper-Calvinism may contend that some passages of Scripture prove that God does not love the non-elect. For example, the Bible states:
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Romans 9:13)
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. (Psalm 5:5)
5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. 6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. 7 For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.” (Psalm 11:5-7)
These passages clearly teach that God hates the wicked. But they do not say that God does NOT love them at the same time. Jehovah is perfectly capable of having love in one sense for a wicked person while hating him in a different sense. Indeed, Psalm 5:5 states that God hates “all” workers of iniquity, so even the elect, before they believe, are hated by God in one sense while being eternally loved by Him in a different sense. If God can love and hate the elect at the same time in different senses, He is perfectly capable of doing the same for the non-elect.
Furthermore, Romans 9:13 is not even about the individuals Jacob and Esau. Paul quotes Malachi 1:2-3, which speaks of God’s special blessings on the nation of Israel, blessings withheld from the nation of Edom. Consider Malachi 1:1-5:
1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, 3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. 5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel. (Malachi 1:1-5)
Romans 9:13 never denies that God loved Esau—God is able to love sinners in one sense while hating them in another. More fundamentally, Romans 9:13 is not even about the individual people Jacob and Esau at all, except insofar as they are the progenitors of the nations of Israel and Edom.
These passages of Scripture are simply taken out of context by hyper-Calvinism.
Hyper-Calvinism Employs Exegetical and Logical Fallacies
When Arguing God Does Not Love the Non-Elect:
Texts on God’s Special Love
Advocates of hyper-Calvinism can also argue that Scripture speaks of God’s love in passages that limit His love to the elect. There are indeed passages of Scripture that show that Jehovah has a special love for His believing people. However, this no more denies that God loves the non-elect than does the fact that a Christian husband has a special love for his wife proves that the husband hates everyone else. Hyper-Calvinism needs texts of Scripture that affirm that God does not love some people, not passages that say God does love some people. There simply are no such texts in God’s Word.
Hyper-Calvinism Makes Further Exegetical
and Historical Fallacies
Hyper-Calvinism also makes other fallacious exegetical arguments. Indeed, hyper-Calvinism does not even accurately represent the teaching of John Calvin. Calvin, speaking about the rich young ruler in Mark 10:21, wrote: “Jesus beholding him, loved him [Mark 10:21]. … [A]ll the creatures of God, without exception, are the objects of his love. … God is sometimes said to love those whom he does not approve or justify … Christ … love[d] a man [like the rich young ruler] who was proud and a hypocrite, while nothing is more hateful to God than these two vices[.] (John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 2 [Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010], 398–399.)
Thus, the teaching of hyper-Calvinism that God does not love every individual grossly misinterprets Scripture while also misinterpreting history. Even John Calvin did not teach the hyper-Calvinist notion that God loves only the elect. Since neither the Bible, nor even John Calvin, taught this false idea, you should not teach or believe it either. Reject such a slander on the character of God and recognize that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error for more information.
–TDR
God does NOT love everyone? A Hyper-Calvinist Error, part 2 of 3
Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? Hyper-Calvinism says “yes!” Scripture says “no!” In part 1 of 3 in this series, I summarized the first portion of my recent composition God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error. John 3:16, Mark 10:21, and 1 John 2:2 refute the hyper-Calvinist idea that God loves only the elect. Scripture is plain that God loves the entire world-every single person.
If Hyper-Calvinists Were Right,
Then Christians Should Not Love Their Enemies
Christians should be like God. If God loves every person, then they should love all men. If God has nothing but an everlasting hatred for the non-elect, then they should strive with all their might to purge out any love that they have for lost sinners from their bosoms and have nothing but an eternal and everlasting hatred for them, (allegedly) like God. However, the Lord Jesus taught:
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)
Christians must love their enemies because God loves His enemies. When they love their wicked, unregenerate, Christ-and-Christian hating enemies, they are being like their Father in heaven. The Sermon on the Mount does not say, “Love your elect enemies and bless the elect when they curse and hate you. If the non-elect do it, though, show eternal hatred to them.” Believers must “increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men” (1 Thessalonians 3:12-13) because God loves all men, not the elect alone.
The Quran Agrees with Hyper-Calvinism,
but the Bible does Not
Hyper-Calvinists need specific passages that teach God does NOT love the majority of the world that rejects Christ and is eternally lost. It would not have been hard for God to include such statements in the Bible. After all, the Quran is filled with them. For example:
Q 2:276 Allah hath blighted usury and made almsgiving fruitful. Allah loveth not the impious and guilty.
Q 3:32 Say: Obey Allah and the messenger. But if they turn away, lo! Allah loveth not the disbelievers (in His guidance).
Q 3:57 And as for those who believe and do good works, He will pay them their wages in full. Allah loveth not wrong-doers.
The Quran is full of such statements-when I went through the Quran from cover to cover as part of my preparation for my debate with the Muslim apologist Shabir Ally I found the seemingly constant drum-beat of Allah’s lack of love for this group and that group a sharp contrast with the teaching of God’s Word, the Bible.
While the idea that God does not love unbelievers is all over the Quran, the number of statements in holy Scripture such as “God does not love person X” or “God does not love people like Y” are equal in number to the statements such as “Christ did not die for person X” or “Christ did not die for group Y”–namely, zero. Both limited atonement and the hyper-Calvinist doctrine of God’s lack of love for the vast majority of mankind are completely absent from Scripture.
Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error for more information.
–TDR
Roman Catholicism Versus Protestantism: Candace Owens Show (part three)
Worship, Roman Catholic or Protestant
Differences
Roman Catholic George Farmer debated Protestant Allie Beth Stuckey on the Candace Owens Show. Picking up midway of part two, Owens challenged Stuckey about the silliness in evangelical worship. I see this as a legitimate criticism of evangelicalism, not however a legitimate promotion of Roman Catholicism.
Everything about Protestantism does not not translate to modern evangelicalism. Worship and church growth philosophy are two of these. These relate more to the decaying culture of Western civilization and its effect on the church.
I imagine far less change in the formal tradition of Roman Catholic liturgy than what occurred to Western evangelicalism as an offshoot of Protestantism. Built into the formal liturgy of Roman Catholicism is a dogma of a transcendent imagination of God. Cavernous cathedrals, stained glass windows, robes, huge wood carved lecterns, sacraments, and pipe organs, even removed from sincerity and true spiritual reality, communicate reverence and seriousness more than evangelical practices today. Both are false, just like Judaistic and Samaritan worship had become in Jesus’ time.
Perversions in True Worship
Stuckey could not give a coherent answer to Owen’s criticism of evangelical worship. She doesn’t show understanding of the problem from a biblical or theological perspective. Stuckey made some good points about seeker-sensitive church growth philosophy and its effects on worship. It’s true that when churches become man-centered through strategies of church growth, it corrupts worship. She didn’t seem concerned about the issue, which is normal for evangelicals. Very few care that God isn’t worshiped by their worldly, irreverent, intemperate, lustful music and atmosphere. This shapes a false view of God that undermines true evangelism and biblical sanctification.
God calls on us to worship Him in the beauty of His holiness (Psalm 96:9). Beauty is objective. It is defined by God and His nature and the perfections of His attributes. Modernism, which includes modern evangelicalism, ejects from objective beauty and, thus, true worship of God. This changes the true God in the imagination of the worshipers to a false God. This corrupts worship in a significant way akin to the corruption authored by Roman Catholicism.
The Gospel
John 3:5
Allie Beth Stuckey then asks George Farmer what the gospel is. He starts by talking about baptism and the eucharist, first quoting John 3:5. Farmer says that this verse is explicit for baptism as a necessity for salvation. It reads:
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Farmer points to baptismal regeneration as sola scriptura, using John 3:5 and saying he depends on scripture for his doctrine of salvation. He argues this is salvation by grace, because the child can do nothing. At the moment of baptism, we do nothing, so that must be grace. He says the early church agreed with that argument, and I’m assuming he refers to the patristic testimony for it. Farmer follows the infant sprinkling as a means of salvation by speaking of the avoidance of mortal sin to stay saved. He doesn’t explain that, but that clarifies his view.
Ephesians 2:8-9 and James 2
Stuckey quotes Ephesians 2:8-9 from the ESV. She says his description of salvation is grace plus works, bringing merit or works to it. Stuckey explains the Catholic view of grace as an ability to earn the salvation. She continues with a mention of 2 Corinthians 5:21, that we become the righteousness of God in Christ.
Farmer rebuts Stuckey by saying that the Roman Catholic Church does not believe salvation by works. He compares infant sprinkling to irresistible grace. The child can’t resist. He says that as long as someone doesn’t commit a mortal sin from that point, he will go to heaven. Then Farmer brings in James 2, that God inscribes a person with grace and through works he receives more grace. He interprets James 2 as, you are not saved through faith alone.
Stuckey makes two arguments. She references election, that we’re chosen before the foundation of the world. Then she reinforces Ephesians 2:8-9 again. When Owens pushes back, she explains James 2. It is works that accompany faith, as seen in the context of the New Testament, all the clear passages for faith alone and grace alone.
Baptism and the Lord’s Table
The conversation comes back to baptism for Farmer. He says the person receives grace through baptism, so it is grace by which someone is saved. He quotes Chesterton to say that it is more than a symbol. This was the issue for Farmer for turning Catholic from Protestant. He sees baptism and the eucharist as more than symbols.
Stuckey had good things to say to Farmer, but it did not seem that she participated much in evangelism or apologetics with Roman Catholics. She needed refutations for the proof texts Farmer gave her. She also needed more verses on the contrast between grace and faith and works. Actually, Roman Catholics will almost never argue like Farmer. I can count with one hand out of thousands of Catholics, those who try to defend their beliefs. However, Church of Christ, Christian Church, and others will argue like Farmer or harder. They keep you sharp on the issues of the debate.
Farmer continued later with an explanation of the real presence of Christ in the elements. He said this is the earliest Christian teaching, found again and again in Christian writing. He taught baptism and the Lord’s Table as crucial to his becoming Roman Catholic. It is important to show that Roman Catholic history is not the history of true Christianity. False doctrine and practice already corrupted the church by earlier than the third century.
Final Comments
John 3:5
I don’t know what Stuckey thought about John 3:5. Farmer used it first and she said nothing about it. Many Protestants think “water” in John 3:5 is baptism. Martin Luther and John Calvin thought so, so maybe that’s why Stuckey wouldn’t touch it. Thomas Ross and I both believe it is natural birth, the water being amniotic fluid. In answering Nicodemus, Jesus described the second birth, born first of water and then second of the Spirit. He explains the new birth or being born again. A second birth is necessary, a spiritual one after a physical one. This reads clear to me and a quick exposition of this text would have been better.
James 2 and Romans 4
Stuckey should have dealt with justification, which is a good place to answer James 2. Abraham was justified by faith before God, as seen in Genesis 15:6 and Romans 4:1-6, the latter a good place to explain, also including Romans 3:20. Paul doesn’t mention baptism in Romans 3 through 5. In James 2, works justified Abraham before men, which means they “vindicated” him, another meaning of “justified.” A man shows his faith by his works. James explains this.
Galatians and Hebrews
I also think someone must go to Galatians and Hebrews to talk to a Roman Catholic, especially Galatians 2, 3, and 5, and then Hebrews 9 and 10. A good question to ask a Roman Catholic is if he believes he has full forgiveness of sins throughout all eternity. He should explicate four verses in Hebrews 9-10: 9:27-28, 10:10, 14. Through the one offering of Christ someone is forever perfected and sanctified. These are perfect tense verbs, completed action with ongoing results.
I like Galatians 5 to show that even adding one work to grace nullifies grace. Stuckey could have quoted Romans 11:6, which says if it’s grace it is no more works and if it is works, it is no more grace. Grace and works are mutually exclusive.
Preparation
This encounter between the three participants shows a need for regular evangelism. Stuckey seemed uncomfortable with boldness. She might not be able to be friends with the other two. And then maybe she doesn’t get the kind of show or podcast that she has. I don’t know.
Someone who does not in a regular way confront the lost over their false gospel or false religion may stay unprepared for a difficult occasion. It is hard to keep good arguments in your head if you don’t use them a lot through constant practice. Hopefully, as you listened to this conversation with these three, you were ready to give an answer for the glory of God.
Addenda
I wanted to add one more thing, which I thought about driving somewhere this afternoon. Farmer brought in infant sprinkling as salvation by grace. He said this was scriptural. Stuckey also should have pushed back against infant sprinkling. It’s not in the Bible anywhere. She could have gone to a number of places on this.
Obviously, Farmer could just bring the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, and tradition. When you can make it up as you go along, you can believe anything. Not only is infant sprinkling not in the Bible anywhere, but it is refuted by several places. I think of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8, what doth hinder me from being baptized? Philip said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Infants can’t believe in Jesus, so they are still hindered from being baptized. Every example of baptism is believer’s baptism.
James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review Videos
There have been a number of debate reviews of the James White vs. Thomas Ross debate on the topic:
“The Legacy Standard Bible, as a representative of modern English translations based upon the UBS/NA text, is superior to the KJV, as a representative of TR-based Bible translations.”
You can watch the debate itself here on the What is Truth? blog, on my website, on Rumble, or on YouTube. If you did watch it, you can also examine some of the review videos. I intend to produce, Lord willing, a series of videos that carefully examine the entire debate. To this point, I have two debate review videos live (one made before the debate was live, and a second one, just produced, that begins to examine James White’s opening presentation).
Thomas Ross: Debate Review and Analysis part #1:
Pre-debate Review Video of James White & His Claims
Watch the debate review part #1 on Rumble
Watch the debate review part #1 on YouTube
In this initial debate review, I provide my thoughts on how the debate went and respond to James White’s claims about the debate in his Dividing Line program of February 21, 2023, c. minutes 5-18, entitled “Road Trip Dividing Line: Gay Mirage, Mass, Biblicism.”
Debate Review and Analysis part #2: James White & His Opening Presentation, part 1: Would the King James Version Translators have Preferred the Legacy Standard Bible and the Nestle-Aland Greek Text to the KJV and the Textus Receptus?
Watch the debate review part #2 on Rumble
Watch the debate review part #2 on YouTube
I now have twelve of these debate review videos. You can watch them all at faithsaves.net, on YouTube, or on Rumble. At least at this point I have not added the ten after the first two to this post to prevent the post from getting overwhelming. Please think about subscribing to my YouTube and Rumble channels to find out when new video reviews come out, as I intend to record some more debate review videos, Lord willing.
James White (Apologia Church): His Own Debate Comments in the Dividing Line
If you would like to hear what James White said about the debate afterwards, watch minutes 5-18 of his February 21, 2023 Dividing Line program.
Jeff Riddle: Reformed Baptist and Confessional Bibliology Advocate’s Debate Review
Dr. Jeff Riddle has produced some helpful post-debate reviews. You can watch part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 on YouTube, or watch them on the embedded links below. I appreciate what Dr. Riddle has written on what he calls Confessional Bibliology. Dr. Riddle rightly wants to distance himself (as do most people who are happy to call themselves King James Only) from extremists like Peter Ruckman and Gail Riplinger while recognizing the difference between the way the original language text is inspired as to its words and translations are God’s Word as to their substance (what he calls the principle of Authoritas Divina Duplex, if you want a little Latin). Whatever you wish to call it, I appreciate his perspective on this issue of Bibliology, although Scripture does not teach TULIP Calvinism (and it also certainly does not teach Arminianism).
Jeff Riddle Debate Review Part 1:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 2:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 3:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 4:
There is a written debate review here on What is Truth? by Dr. Kent Brandenburg: “The White-Ross Debate: Who Won?” as well as some follow-up posts by Dr. Brandenburg (follow-up part 1; part 2; part 3).
There are also some debate reviews by a gentleman named Nick Sayers, who has a website called Textus Receptus. I know less about his doctrinal position than I do about Dr. Riddle. Mr. Sayers belongs to a religious organization called “Revolution Church.” He made seven extremely long debate review videos (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7). A large percentage of what he points out is useful, although I would disagree with him at a minority of points. Everyone should repent and believe the gospel, and then be immersed into a Baptist Church, not a Revolution church.
I am not aware of any of the disciples of James White making any review videos dealing in detail with the substance of the debate. The best I could locate was a five-minute review by one of James White’s disciples named “Polite Leader.” Polite Leader completely ignored the fact that the Nestle-Aland text is a patchwork and many of the other extreme problems with the text White is defending, but I suppose one can only say so much in a video that short, and so putting in what he believed were James’ best points would be important, from his viewpoint.
Thanks again for your prayers for God’s truth and for me during the debate. To Him alone be the glory for the good for His kingdom that was accomplished by it, and to me alone be the blame for what I should have done better.
–TDR
Bifurcation in Beauty: Dualism of Spiritual/Sacred and Natural/Secular
You have heard, “Life imitating art or art imitating life.” In that vein, art imitates worldview.” Even when someone says, this is his worldview, his art may contradict what he says is his worldview. The art or his aesthetic is a better or more accurate expression of his worldview than other means of expressing it.
You could see what was important to Jesus by His reaction to the corrupting of the temple, His Father’s house. When someone blows his top because you dinged his car, that says something about the priority of his car, more than if you asked him. A person’s music has that way of explaining the meaning of a person’s life.
Worship of and Love for God
One biblical and historical element of worship of God is music. The Bible is full of music. Worship is an offering to God. God regulates the offering. It must be what God wants for Him to accept it.
Someone said, “You are what (or who) you worship.” Whatever you give God, that’s what you think about Him. If you give that to Him, then that expresses who you are, as much as it does who God is.
You can say you love God, like you can say you know God. If you don’t do what He says, you neither love Him or know Him, which overlap. The love shines through what you offer. It is like giving God the present you wanted, not what He did. You love yourself.
The “life imitating art” part of the equation says that art affects life. Life changes by the art influencing it. A person especially changes by the thoughts expressed about God through the music offered God.
The Meaning
What I have written assumes that art means something. It also says that art itself is not subjective and personal. Scripture says this, when it says that God is worshiped in the beauty of His holiness.
Beauty, which relates to aesthetics or art, is not in the eye of the beholder. It is objective in its meaning. Holiness is beautiful. That would mean that the unholy is not beautiful. Everything is not beautiful in its own way. Some is beautiful and some is not.
God separates from what falls short of the perfections of His attributes. That is the holiness of God. God will not receive as worship what falls short of His attributes. He separates from that as characteristic of His nature.
Bifurcation of Beauty
How is it that today churches do offer God the profane, that is, what conflicts with His attributes? Churches bifurcate beauty, just like they do with truth. They separated the spiritual or sacred from the natural or secular. Like there is total truth, one truth like one God, there is total beauty.
Churches and their leaders (or perhaps the leaders just pander to the people) went along with the split. They regarded and treated spiritual things as sentimental and emotional, not on the same plain as the natural and the secular. Church is an escape from the real world.
The music offers that escape and that feeling, which lifts someone emotionally, and is seen as a sacred or spiritual experience with God. That’s what church does as its most essential. People leave with a skip in their step, ready to go in the real world, the secular one, even thinking it was God.
Some churches and their leaders would disagree they do what I described in the previous paragraph. They explain it as something different, so removed from what occurred, because now that is the norm for a church. It’s been done so long, it’s just church now. It follows the trajectory of a revision of true worship, not true worship.
A church with corrupt music and worship doesn’t see its art as negative or corrupted. That is instead something profane to the extreme like a Mapplethorpe exhibit of a crucifix in a jar of urine, pushed by the National Endowment of Arts in the late 1980s. Certain extreme or exotic modern or even postmodern forms, those are wrong. Not the profanity churches now perform and consider worship.
Tell-Tale
Without the church doing much to anything to help it, the world’s culture has decayed. Churches veered off objective beauty, or one beauty. Something is either beautiful or it is not. Beauty is not related to secular or spiritual or even sacred.
Music isn’t sacred because it is used in the church; it is sacred because it is sacred. That also means it is beautiful, because, again, beauty relates to the glory of the Lord. A corruption of beauty, used in worship in the church, does not become beautiful by a church using it, what some today call, “redeeming” it.
The music someone plays and enjoys, and especially for someone who says he is a Christian, by that you can tell who he is. I know some of you readers hate that. You deny it sharply and often angrily. The reasons for the heat also help explain what is happening.
It is easy today for professing Christians to stand up against decadent culture. They can point out what’s very horrible in bad books in schools and their curriculum. Meanwhile, their churches are decaying at perhaps a little slower pace but a continuous one that isn’t far behind the world.
What is light and easy, sentimental and emotional, and entertaining also sells. Salzburg and Vienna and the rest of Europe went for Mozart’s music because of the former, the light and easy, etc. His dad Leopold, however, liked the selling part of it. It wasn’t lost on the religious leaders that Mozart also boosted their prominence and position.
Church Consumers
Entertainment, Not Worship
Church attenders become consumers, which is the opposite of worship. They also confuse that feeling from true spirituality. It doesn’t matter, because that feeling and spirituality are on the same plain. When the congregants leave their meeting, they take that experience as preparation for the real world. That’s also now constituted as God. The people think they’ve associated with God because it is indistinguishable from Him. It is actually more aligned with the world they enter after their assembling ends.
Even Baptist meetings have long encouraged the decadence of consumerism. They entertain a crowd. The feeling is an apparent sanctified one, which is a lie. The one who does this the best, a kind of circus-master, is a wanted commodity. It or he improves the spirit of the meeting, again this superficial, sentimental emotionalism. God is using his talent. Most cannot resist the popularity of it. It is its own pop music.
How could churches permit a philosophy in conflict with God? Some don’t judge music. Even though arts are full of meaning, they relegate it to meaninglessness. It is in this meaningless realm of spirituality, not like what occurs where there is meaning, eight to five, a real life. Many also judge against the extreme and deem themselves better by comparison.
Loss of Discernment
Young people in church often feel left out. If they get this music, it at least might connect them to the real world. This is the acquiescence to youth culture. Their hormones are raging and they chafe under parental authority. They look happier and parents think the church succeeds at keeping them. Its young people are happy. At least they can smile to the rhythm, the feeling, and the allurement.
Churches lose their discernment, described in a biblical way as unable to distinguish the holy from the profane. It occurs through incrementalism. Men won’t separate from it. They won’t say no to it. It gets worse and then doesn’t stop getting worse. To explain it requires something more than a thirty second sound byte. Even if you can, the Bible doesn’t have a play button to give the kind of proof necessary for such diminished discernment.
Country music or Country Western arose in church settings. It grew among church going young people in the Bible belt. They took the sentimentality and feelings that corresponded to the bifurcation of beauty in the church. Country western stars, who began in church, brought a more intense version of it to the world. It produced an even more extreme response.
Holy and Profane
Ryman Auditorium, the temple of country music, looks like a church building. It gives people, especially young ones, that feeling they had at church, making their experience in the world indistinguishable from church. The entertainers at church just do a lesser version of the same thing. This contrasts with Ezekiel 44:23:
And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
The country stars were good at country music. What started in church succeeded in the world. The success in the world, more excessive in its effect, travelled back to the church. The church accepts it, because that’s the domain of the spiritual.
To Be Continued
Suzerain-Vassal Treaties & the Books of Moses: Joshua Berman
I had the privilege of interviewing Jewish scholar Dr. Joshua Berman, professor of Hebrew Bible at Bar-Illan University in Israel, on the fact that the books of Moses, the Pentateuch, follow the late second Millennium BC format of a suzerain-vassal treaty. This fact strongly supports the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and, hence, the existence of genuine and unavoidable predictive prophecy in the Bible, and, thus, the Bible’s Divine authorship. Jehovah, the God of Israel, is the suzerain or great King, and Israel is the vassal, the subordinate dependent on the suzerain.
When my wife and I visited Egypt last year as part of a faculty tour of Egypt led by evangelical scholar James Hoffmeier, we had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Berman in Luxor, Egypt, on the issue of suzerain-vassal treaties (he prefers to be called “Joshua.”) Joshua Berman explains the issue quite clearly and effectively, so if you find the terminology “suzerain vassal treaty” scary, watch the video below of the interview, and I suspect you will both understand the issue and see the value of it for Christian apologetics.
I have posted about apologetics videos recorded on this trip to Egypt in previous posts on this blog, such as this one on the famous Merneptah Stele.
Ironically, when I debated president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Dan Barker, on the Old Testament, Mr. Barker claimed that “The Israelis over in Israel … the archaeologists are throwing up their hands saying, ‘No, there’s nothing. None of these stories has any archaeological evidence at all.’” Barker’s assertion was always ridiculous, as was demonstrated within the debate itself, but the interview with Dr. Berman provides even more evidence for the foolishness of Mr. Barker’s argument.
After the interview with Dr. Joshua Berman, other scholars, including Kenneth Kitchen (On the Reliability of the Old Testament), James Hoffmeier (The Archaeology of the Bible), and Meredith Kline (Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy) are also quoted. You can learn more about archaeological evidence for the Old Testament here.
So please watch the video below. You can watch the embed below, or view it on faithsaves.net here, or on Rumble by clicking here, or on YouTube by clicking here.
–TDR
Eras of Miracles and Divine Interventionism
Where my wife and I are staying, we have waited at one spot four different times for someone to pick us up and every time there on the top of a short brick wall sat a tiny toy figure. Three different days and four rides the same toy person was there. I guessed it was a Star Wars figure. Looking more closely, it seemed a young woman in a Star Wars-like outfit. In what I know of the Star Wars story, it was probably a jedi and maybe the one the story calls “the last jedi.”
If you don’t know the Star Wars story, because you’ve seen none of it, good for you, but let me explain. In a fictional cosmos, the jedi are warriors with supernatural power, who fight for what is called the light side of the force as opposed to the dark side. This fiction hearkens to God on the light side and Satan on the dark side. According to the fiction, the force connotes to something like a pantheistic view of God in which he is not a person, but some kind of mystical power. The fiction speaks of an existence of God, albeit a false one. This supernaturalism is crucial to the explanation of everything that happens in Star Wars fiction.
In the Star Wars story, only a few characters possess supernatural power to use either for evil or for good. Those without that power find themselves often in need of the abilities or gifts of those special individuals. Over aeons of time, certain ones through the story uniquely, even more greatly tap into the light side or the dark side of this supernatural force. These individuals come along once in a very long time with very special significance and they are usually prophesied. The needy natural ones place their hope in the coming of those to deliver them.
Fictional prophet-like characters predict the coming of the few supernatural characters, very often just one, with very special power. These prophets receive revelations from the same supernatural power, which is apparently God, and they know what will happen in the future. The spread of these prophesies over a fictional cosmos results in its people looking for the coming of these superior, supernatural figures, which will change the course of history.
I write all this to say that in general people who know the Star Wars story accept eras of supernatural intervention in their fictional cosmos. It makes sense to them. They agree both with the existence of supernatural power that works through men and that once in a great while this same supernatural power raises up a prophesied person who can use the power. In other words, they accept eras of miracles. They recognize the continuity of a natural world accompanied by rare times, moments, periods, or ages of supernatural intervention.
In a fictional Star Wars world, the divine always works to maintain and sustain, but also intervenes in a unique way. An unprecedented person comes along, who is not normal. He is far from normal and no one has been seen like him in ages. The maintaining and sustaining are continuity. They are normative. The rare one, however, is not. This is discontinuity.
Scripture gives (see especially 2 Peter) as a major reason for apostasy, a departure from the faith and the truth, the scarcity of evidence of divine intervention. God gives every good thing. He always intervenes in a providential manner, His good graces seen everywhere and at all times. God also though intervenes at times in unique ways. Men say because of the sparsity of the latter, they can’t receive the Lord. He must show Himself more to their liking. I call these showings, crown performances. If God doesn’t bring them a crown performance, they have their excuse for not believing.
God has intervened in a special, unique, and miraculous way throughout history. However, this kind of dealing is far less frequent. The word “miracle” is most often the same Greek word translated “sign.” Something isn’t a sign if it is the same as anything else that occurs on an everyday basis.
Through scripture, you can see eras of miracles. They mark extraordinary times and people, and these occasions, which are very rare through history, make a unique point, one that stands out very much. Certain names are associated in the Bible with these eras, including Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles.
One figure stands out above all of those functioning with supernatural power in an era of miracles: the Lord Jesus Christ. If these operations were normal occurrences, they would not stand out, and neither would Jesus. Jesus must stand out and He does stand out. He will show Himself in even greater glory when He comes the second time and in fulfillment of further prophecy. He is the greatest figure in all of world history.
Millions of Muslims are NOT Becoming Christians Because of Dreams!
Many sources report that, in the words of Roman Catholic conservative Dinesh D’Souza, “Millions of Muslims are Converting to Christianity After Having Dreams and Visions of Jesus Christ.” Charismatic sources agree with the Catholics about millions of Muslims becoming Christians through dreams and visions. So do Southern Baptist mission agencies.
These visions and dreams clearly prove that:
1.) Continuationism is true and cessationism is false. God is continuing to give revelatory dreams and visions today. We have lots of testimonials, and testimonials can’t be wrong.
2.) Any passages of Scripture that seem to teach the cessation of revelation with the completion of the canon must be reinterpreted in light of the overwhelming proof from the dreams and visions.
3.) If this can happen in Muslim lands, it can happen here. Instead of the hard work of teaching people to skillfully preach the gospel, and working so that they grow spiritually to the point where they love to go house to house, we should encourage people to seek after signs, wonders, and dreams, because that is how there will be millions of new converts here in our country as well.
Right?
Wrong.
Why?
Scripture is the sole authority for the believer’s faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:15-17). Scripture is more sure than any experience–even hearing the audible voice of God Himself (2 Peter 1:16-21). Scripture, therefore, must never have its teaching ignored, altered, overlooked, or changed because of what someone claims he experienced. Indeed, even if everyone in the whole world said something was true, but Scripture said otherwise, the Bible would be right and everyone would be wrong: “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).
Scripture teaches cessationism, as the studies linked to here clearly demonstrate. There are no Apostles today or apostolic gifts (Ephesians 2:20), the canon of Scripture is complete (1 Corinthians 13:8-13), and God Word is His completed revelatory speech.
Furthermore, Scripture teaches that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17); conversion comes through Scripture (John 15:3). Men are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). So nobody has been born again because of a dream. The Holy Spirit produces the new birth as sinners, enabled by grace, respond to the gospel recorded in the Word of God. This is “thus saith the Lord.” I don’t care what someone says happened in his dream. God’s Word is infinitely more reliable than someone’s dream, and Scripture teaches that people are born again through hearing the gospel, not having dreams and visions.
So how do I explain the dreams? I don’t need to explain people’s dreams. The Bible tells me to live by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), but it never tells me that I need to explain what someone said he saw in a dream. I don’t need to explain dreams of people who say they left Islam and rejected Allah and the Quran for Christianity. Nor do I need to explain the dreams of people who say they left Christianity for Islam after having a dream. How am I supposed to know what is going on in someone else’s head when he is sleeping? The vast majority of the time I can’t even remember my own dreams. Yet I need to explain what someone tells me happened in his dream, or what someone tells someone else who tells someone else who tells someone else who prints an article with no documentation in a charismatic magazine about a dream?
I am suspicious that these “millions” of converts are allegedly taking place in lands far, far away where it is impossible to verify anything. For example, in the Dinesh D’Souza video above, there are no sources provided and no way to verify anything. This is typical–indeed, D’Souza is a scholarly man who tends to document his material far better than does the average charismatic magazine. With these millions of alleged converts to Christianity, true churches–independent Baptist churches–should be overflowing in Muslim countries, as Islam is allegedly collapsing and true Christians are allegedly becoming a huge percentage of the population. But are these people-if they even exist–becoming true Christians, or leaving Islam for other demonic religions, like Roman Catholicism or Oneness Pentecostalism? What would someone leaving one false religion for a different false religion prove? Scripture teaches that we see Christ by faith, enabled by the Spirit, in the Word (2 Corinthians 3:18), and all images of Jesus Christ are idolatrous violations of the Second Commandment (see the relevant resources here). So are they seeing the real Jesus in a dream? Also, where are all these people? Why is this only (allegedly) happening in places far, far away where we can’t actually verify it? I think of how Jack Hyles claimed that through “God’s power,” allegedly in conjunction with carnal promotion and marketing techniques that manipulated people and are found nowhere in Scripture, he had far more “saved” in one day than the Holy Ghost did on the Day of Pentecost, although not even one person was added to First Baptist of Hammond, Indiana on that day through these “saved” people, and people close enough to the situation to investigate claimed that the vast majority of these “saved” people were just as lost as before. I think of how Keswick continuationist John A. MacMillan, who is promoted among Independent Baptists at schools like Baptist College of Ministry. MacMillan claimed to have an amazing technique for casting out demons, which was copied by him and promoted at one of the yearly Victory Conferences at Baptist College of Ministry and Falls Baptist Church–but people who were close to the situation claimed, on the contrary, that the demons were in control of everything. I think of how Evan Roberts and Jessie Penn-Lewis, with their dreams and visions, destroyed the 1904-1905 Welsh revival. Scripture is sufficient, so even if I were confronted with signs and wonders of the quality that the Antichrist will perform in the Tribulation, I would still go by sola Scriptura–Scripture alone. But the alleged evidence for these dreams and visions seems to be woefully lacking. They aren’t like the real revelatory miracles in the Bible before the miraculous gifts ceased.
Note that the question is not if God is powerful enough to give people dreams. The question is not one of God’s power. It is one of what He has said He would do in His inspired revelation, the Bible–and in that revelation He has said that the giving of revelation through dreams has ceased. Nor is there a category of “non revelatory” dreams that are infallibly from God. If God gives infallible truth, then it is revelation. If it is not infallible truth, then God is not speaking in the dream, for God cannot lie, but only speaks and reveals infallible truth.
What if I come across someone who actually is serving the Lord faithfully in a true church, but who says that having a dream was part of how he became a Christian? Doesn’t that mean that I need to reinterpret Scripture? No. God is sovereign, and He can use all kinds of things to get people thinking about religion or about His Word. I know someone who is a faithful Christian who, before his conversion, liked to watch creationist videos while smoking pot. That doesn’t mean I commend the pot smoking. I know someone else who called on a ghost (likely a demon) to come to him, and then says that the ghost came at night and almost killed him. The demonic intervention led this person away from agnosticism to openness to the supernatural, and years later he became a Christian. That doesn’t mean I support agnostics calling on ghosts or demons. So if someone says he had a dream and that led him away from Islam to Christianity, I’m glad if he trusted in Christ, while everything contrary to Scripture that took place in his life–including the alleged revelatory dreams–are chalked up to God’s merciful and providential grace, and need no further explanation. (This is even apart from the fact that we cannot see people’s hearts, and even in true churches people without the new birth can enter and appear to be genuine believers for a time, so I cannot rule out the possibility that the person who claims to have been born again after seeing a dream is not a true child of God.)
So are millions of Muslims being born again because of dreams? No. Nobody is being born again because of a dream. Are Muslims having dreams that lead them to all kinds of religious experiences? Very possibly. Why? There could be all kinds of reasons. I do not need to speculate.
What I do need to know is what Scripture teaches. The Biblical truth of cessationism is being weakened in some independent Baptist churches because people are not thinking Biblically, but are allowing what people say is happening in their dreams to justify changes to Biblical beliefs on charismata. You are dreaming if you think it is right to change one’s doctrine and practice from what Scripture teaches because of what some other person says he saw when he was sleeping.
Never change or set aside God’s Word because of an experience or what someone says. That was part of Satan’s original technique that caused the Fall in Genesis 3. Go with Scripture–not the dreams. As Christ said, “thy word is truth” (John 17:17). Give Muslims gospel truth, such as in The Testimony of the Quran to the Bible pamphlet. Reject the dreams. Do not be deceived.
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