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What Is the “False Doctrine” of Only One Text of the Bible? (Part Two)
The average non-church going person and even church goers see the glut of English Bibles and often say, “There are different Bibles.” I’ve heard it dozens of times through the years. Is that true? Is there really more than one Bible? The answer is “no.” God inspired only one Bible, certain exact words, and then He also preserved one Bible with the same exact words in the same language in which they were written. The so-called existence of “many Bibles” undermines authority for the one and only Bible. Believing in one Bible doesn’t require an apology. That belief is a true one.
An Apology
Mark Ward just wrote the following:
One of my life’s long-term prayers is that someone of stature within KJV-Only circles will publicly apologize for promoting false doctrine.
Then he explained the reason:
Ultimately God only knows what moral culpability individuals bear for teaching things that aren’t true and thereby dividing the body of Christ. God only knows who is a victim and who is a perpetrator, or what proportions of perpetrator and victim a given person represents. But I just can’t imagine that all this untruth and division that’s been generated by KJV-Onlyism could occur without individual people sinning—sinning against the teaching of 1 Cor 14 that edification requires intelligibility, sinning against commands for unity and for sound doctrine, sinning against God’s providential opportunities for doing better study.
In part one, I examined Ward’s charge of division for which he prays for an apology. Above you can also see he charges men with not telling the truth. That I know of, I haven’t taught anything on this subject that isn’t true. No one has shown me one thing that I’ve said that is false, which is an important prerequisite for apologizing about saying something not true. That’s all I can say on that part as an answer to Mark Ward’s prayer. He’ll have to get more specific with me if he wants that particular apology. I’m a phone call away for any apology if he’s been praying for one.
Logic and Ambiguity
In recent days, Ward declared that KJVO leaders sin for having the KJV as their church Bible. For you reading, who don’t know much about Ward, this explains his use of 1 Corinthians 14. There is a kind of syllogism that with Ward gets this to the sin category for me and others. I’m trying to help you understand Ward’s thinking here. I’ve made his logic into a syllogism.
Major Premise: Knowing to do good and not doing good is sin.
Minor Premise: Edification is good and because unintelligibility prohibits edification, allowing or causing unintelligibility is not doing good.
Conclusion: Therefore, allowing or causing unintelligibility is sin.
I can agree with the soundness of the syllogism. What’s wrong? There’s an informal logical fallacy called, equivocation.
The equivocation fallacy refers to the use of an ambiguous word or phrase in more than one sense within the same argument. Because this change of meaning happens without warning, it renders the argument invalid or even misleading.
Intelligibility and unintelligibility of themselves are ambiguous. Like many other words and even concepts in scripture, someone can make them mean what he wants them to mean. A believer should define a word in scripture based on how the author uses it. Mark Ward defines intelligibility in a particular way that does not fit 1 Corinthians 14. Many people have explained that to him. I haven’t seen him listen on this and almost anything else. He has a bias toward his own thinking.
Language and 1 Corinthians 14
Paul portrayed a situation in 1 Corinthians 14 where someone spoke in an unknown language. People couldn’t understand it without a translator. Only with an accurate translation could someone understand a foreign language. The conclusion: stop speaking in an unknown or foreign language. There it is.
1 Corinthians 14 is in a three chapter section (12-14) on spiritual gifts. It especially deals with an abuse of the gift of tongues. The actual gift of tongues, as seen in Acts 2, means known languages. The point is understanding the language. Those chapters are not about semantical changes in the same language, but about reining in the abuse of tongues.
Semantic changes occur in the Bible itself and the Bible doesn’t sin when it does that or allows it. Words change in meaning as one reads through the Bible itself. Sometimes the progression of the biblical narrative results in some changes in meaning.
I’m not writing to protect semantic changes in an English translation of God’s perfectly preserved words. We want to know what those words mean and all the other ones too. 1 Corinthians 14 deals mainly with speaking in gibberish, that is, in a language that can’t be know at all. It’s not even a language. That doesn’t edify.
Real Concerns
Even if someone spoke an actual foreign language in a miraculous way, he wouldn’t edify the hearers if they didn’t know the language. That or unintelligible gibberish is the context of verse 9, when Paul says, “utter by the tongue words easy to be understood.” He is not talking about a word here and there of the same language as the hearers, which has endured a semantic change. Edification would still occur with that. I’m not saying it’s not a problem. It is. But it isn’t a sin.
Calling sin the continued endorsement of the King James Version as the English Bible for a church is such an exaggeration, so excessive, by Mark Ward, that it reminds me of the games Pharisees played with words, as recorded in the Gospels. It is blowing a concern way out of proportion.
I’ve written a lot about this through the years, but my bigger concern is a distortion of the gospel and perverted preaching. Many, many who use the King James Version for decades and longer have preached a false gospel and now for half a century at least have just used the King James. It’s not because of archaic words that they do this. They do it because of perverted theology and probably in many instances a lack of conversion. I hear almost nothing about that from Mark Ward. No. Even when he is with someone who massacres the true gospel, he says nothing as long as that person gives an inch on his false friend teaching.
More to Come
Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief (part three)
Jesus is the Christ
John wrote his gospel, he says, so people would believe Jesus is the Christ and believing they would have life through His name (John 20:31). The object of belief is crucial to saving faith. I like to say that you might believe in Jesus, but if Jesus is a jar of peanut butter, he won’t save you. He isn’t, but who is He? Believing isn’t arbitrary. It doesn’t disappear into the ether. Saving belief lands somewhere and that is on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus does all the saving. He is Savior. However, He does not save the person that does not believe that He is the Christ. True, genuine belief couples together with Jesus as the Christ. This truth about Jesus and His identity also relates to the kingdom.
When one reads through the gospels and Acts to see what Jesus and the Apostles preached, you see the two truths woven together as one message. In Matthew 4:23 Jesus went through Galilee “preaching the gospel of the kingdom” (same in Matthew 9:35). Matthew 8 and 9 are a continuation of Matthew 4 with the Sermon on the Mount sandwiched in between (Matthew 5-7). In Matthew 24:14 again Jesus repeats, “the gospel of the kingdom” that he preaches. Jesus says in Mark 1:15: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
Christ in Acts
Philip
Concerning the ministry of preaching of Philip, Acts 8:12 says:
But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
In the same context, Acts 8:5 says that Philip preached “Christ,” which would be shorthand for the same thing. The kingdom of God dovetails with the name of Jesus Christ, inextricably connected. One sees the same with the Apostle Paul in Acts 28:31:
Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
Paul
Right when Paul started to preach in Damascus after his conversion, Acts 9:20 says “he preached Christ in the synagogues.” Two verses later, Acts 9:22 says:
But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.
Acts 17:3 describes Paul’s gospel preaching:
Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.
One chapter later, Acts 18:5 says:
And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.
Furthermore, verse 28 of the same chapter says:
For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.
Preach Christ
Many times the New Testament represents preaching the gospel as “preach Christ.” In 2 Corinthians 4:5, Paul writes:
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
“Christ” (Christos) means “anointed one.” The verb chrio in the Greek is “to anoint.” The Greek chrisma means anointing, as does chrisis. “Christ” is the New Testament word or translation of “Messiah.” Everyone needs to understand that Christ fulfills the Messianic prophesies, which ties in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. He is that King.
Christ and the Kingdom of God
The church today is about the kingdom of God, given the keys to the kingdom. Entering the kingdom spiritually or in one’s heart is a reception of that kingdom now, as if one is entering now into it. In Luke 17:21, Jesus said:
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Someone needs to know that. He must acquiesce to the kingdom of God now and what it represents, including persuasion that Jesus is the King over it and that having Him as King requires subservience. When Jesus preached, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17), He was saying, “The King is here.” He preached repentance accompanied by the kingdom and He the King. A person must want the Christ and what that represents. The alternative is the prince of this world, Satan, and what he offers now and his kingdom.
When someone preaches the gospel, he explains it, and he persuades someone from the scripture that Jesus is the Christ. Someone needs to know that for salvation. John wrote His book, the Gospel of John, to do that so that the audience would believe Jesus is the Christ. That is still an integral part of the gospel, if not the gospel. Someone does not believe in Jesus Christ, when he does not believe that Jesus is the Christ.
More to Come
Crucial to a Gospel Presentation: Explain Belief
What Happens
Today I went canvassing for three hours. Most of time, I go out preaching, but for various reasons, I canvassed. Nevertheless, I preached the gospel to an 80 year old woman, who did not know it. I was putting a packet on her door, and there she stood looking at me, so I introduced myself. She sat down on her porch, so I sat down on her porch, and we talked. In most ways, it was a very typical conversation, which means she did not know the meaning of the gospel. She had heard the word, but it was almost meaningless to her, and that is normal today in the United States.
Very often when I preach the gospel, I say something like this:
I have given the gospel to thousands of people. When I finish, I always ask the person hearing it if he believes what I said was the truth. I can’t remember the last time someone didn’t answer, “Yes,” to that question. Everyone to whom I explain the gospel says they believe it is the truth.
At the end of my presentation, she also said it was true.
How the Gospel Breaks Down
In my experience, gospel preaching breaks down on nearly every occasion (probably 95% plus) in one of three places.
- The listener will not relent on considering himself to be a good person.
- Someone doesn’t believe he deserves Hell.
- A person refuses to believe in Jesus Christ.
The third of these is the biggest problem, but all three connect with or depend on the other two. On many occasions, I’ve gotten by the first and second of them. The third is still the deal-breaker when it comes to salvation. Believing the gospel unto salvation requires believing in Jesus Christ. It is vital, absolutely necessary that someone believe in Jesus Christ for salvation. In one sense, this is the gospel. Someone can believe everything else within the gospel message and not believe in Jesus Christ and still reject the gospel. The first two become irrelevant without the third.
It’s important that believing in Jesus Christ is in fact believing in Jesus Christ. The hearer must believe in Jesus Christ. It can’t be something someone calls, “believe in Jesus Christ,” but isn’t. For this reason, the preacher must explain belief in Jesus Christ. He must.
What “Believing in Jesus Christ” Isn’t
- It isn’t merely praying a prayer.
- Believing in Jesus Christ isn’t accepting Jesus into your life.
- Neither is it merely accepting Jesus as Savior.
- Believing in Jesus isn’t asking Jesus to save you.
- It is not asking Jesus into your heart.
All of the above are not what it is to believe in Jesus Christ. They are, just maybe, a piece of it, a small one. More than these five could probably be listed, but they at least give the essence of what’s wrong.
Some so-called “evangelists” don’t even use “believe in Jesus Christ” as the terms for salvation. If they go to those verses, they very often just ignore those statements and what they say. They use the Bible, but they don’t rely on it. It results in preaching a false gospel, because it doesn’t get to “believing in Jesus Christ,” which is required in the true gospel.
What Believing in Jesus Christ Is
Next Time
Street Preaching in San Francisco by Ghirardelli Square
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ on the street in San Francisco, near Ghiradelli Square by Fisherman’s Wharf, where one of the cable car lines ends. (Perhaps by the time this post goes live I will have done it again.) I had wanted to start engaging in open-air preaching for a while. We had prayed for wisdom about where to go, and this spot by Ghiradelli Square seemed like a good one. I had a significant audience of people who could not really go away because they were waiting for the cable car, as well as a goodly amount of foot traffic. Also, there are fewer crazies by Ghiradelli Square then there are on the other side of the cable car line on Market Street, so people might not instinctively assume that someone who was speaking loudly was nuts or high on drugs. My wife was distributing gospel tracts and testimony tracts while I was preaching, and we got to have a good conversation with a man and his family afterwards. Many people got to hear the glorious truth about God’s Son and the salvation that is in Him.
I have wanted to start preaching on the street (again) for a number of reasons. First, we now live in a city where there are good locations to do it. It does not make sense to preach on the street if one is in a rural or suburban area where there is no foot traffic. In a large city there are good places where open air gospel proclamation can take place. Second, street preaching is extremely Biblical. The Lord Jesus Christ preached in the open air, as did His Apostles, John the Baptist, and many first-century Christians. The Old Testament is also full of open air preaching. Third, street preaching shows love for the lost. People who will not take a gospel tract are confronted with orally proclaimed truth. Fourth, street preaching is good for the Christian who does it. It helps him to trust in the Lord and do something that the world is going to strongly dislike. It helps him to grow in humble trust in Christ and holy boldness in His cause. It is unpleasant to the flesh but a great blessing to the spirit. I think it is good for “preacher boys” to preach on the street. It is good practice. If someone is afraid to tell the truth to total strangers who 99.9% of the time are going to have no impact on one’s life other than, perhaps, some insults or disrespect, how will he have the boldness to tell unpopular truth to a congregation of people who have the ability to remove him from his spiritual office? Has the Lord given you a strong desire (1 Timothy 3:1) to preach His gospel? Don’t think that you can’t preach unless you have an invitation from a pulpit. Go out into the highways and hedges and preach to the sinners there.
I recorded the message both so that I could post it online afterwards, so more people could hear the gospel, because it could encourage God’s people, and because I think that having a recording is a wise safety precaution. You can watch how things went here:
I also have the video on Rumble and on YouTube.
Nobody bothered us except for a street musician who did not like that I was there and wanted me to stop preaching. I gave him a soft answer (Proverbs 15:1) and that was the end of that. There were numbers of people who were paying attention to the preaching, including some who were paying attention but were trying to pretend that they were not paying attention. Sometimes I have seen people preach on the street and just ramble on. Some others do not actually preach the gospel but just repeat a few bullet points over and over again. Other people seem to just want to make people angry and show no compassion, while others can sound like wimps (although usually true wimps don’t preach the gospel on the street). While someone who is not preaching anything to anyone should be careful before finding fault with ramblers, bullet-point people, crowd-whipper-uppers, and wimpy-sounders, it looks clear to me from the examples of Christ and the apostles and prophets that it is most Biblical to actually preach a coherent message, namely, the gospel. I addressed the listeners as “friends” because we see the repeated “men and brethren” in Acts–a respectful address to those listening. If someone is going to be offended by the gospel I am preaching, that is fine–if the Spirit pricks their hearts or cuts them to the heart, that is something good that we want. I want to be bold and unashamed as I proclaim my King and Father’s message as His servant and son. However, if people are offended because I am just being rude and nasty, that does not help anything. So that is why I sought to preach the gospel in the way that I did it.
Lord willing, we will make this a regular event. I want to preach the gospel on the street at least once a month in addition to our weekly house-to-house evangelism. Writing it like this on the blog will help me to be encouraged to keep it up. I would like you to also to be encouraged to start following the example of Christ and His Apostles by preaching on the street, or if you are already doing it, to keep it up!
If you are an experienced street preacher and you have any thoughts on it, feel free to share them. I have done some street preaching in the past–it was a blast to go to large conventions of the Watchtower Society in our area which that cult holds around the country and offer Christ to thousands of members of that false religion–but it has been a while (if they have conventions in your area, and you can find a “free speech zone” or other place near where they are meeting where you can preach without getting kicked out, I would encourage you to do that). I am much more interested in hearing comments from people who are members of Biblical Baptist churches than I am in hearing from people who are part of strange false religions that go street preaching. One thing I already know I want to to do is get a sign with church information and a website. There were people who were listening to the preaching but did not come by and take a tract, and I want them to know how to find out more when they are not in a situation where, because of peer pressure or for other reasons, they are not willing to come up and take gospel literature with contact information from one of the Lord’s churches. I am thankful for those who pray for us and pray for the gospel to get out in the very needy San Francisco Bay Area. Thank you!
–TDR
John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus and Sending Authority in Matthew 3
Paraginomai Versus Ginomai
The Greek verb paraginomai appears only three times in Matthew, an intense or emphatic form of a common verb, ginomai. All three occur in Matthew 2 and 3:
2:1, “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.”
3:1, “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea.”
3:13, “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.”
The magi, those kingmakers from a powerful far eastern nation, came with royal authority and bringing kingly gifts. Herod recognized their authority. It troubled him. John the Baptist, the forerunner and herald of the King who would sit on the throne of David forever, came heralding or preaching. The King Himself, Jesus, came to begin His work in an official capacity.
Luke 7:20 uses the same unique verb, paraginomai, to describe John the Baptist ascending to his divine task, parallel with Matthew 3:1. The only usage in Mark, 14:43, sees an official, governing body of chief priests, scribes, and elders with Judas coming to arrest Jesus. The Apostle Paul uses paraginomai in 2 Timothy 4:16, saying, “At my first answer no man stood with me.” He described no one joining him in an official capacity in public court. It’s an obviously technical word to denote the function of a person who came into court to defend the accused (John Phillips, Exploring the Pastoral Epistles, p. 454).
Official Capacity
The only use of paraginomai in Hebrews (9:11) reads:
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.
This verse describes Christ, the anointed one, come an high priest, so again in a high, official capacity, so with authority. In the New International Commentary on Hebrews, Paul Ellingworth says concerning Hebrews 9:11, The use of paraginomai instead of the usual ginomai suggests “an official public appearance” (p. 449). So also Harold Attridge in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, commenting on the dramatic nuance of the word (paragenomenos, participle of paraginomai), says, “He has arrived on the heavenly scene as High Priest” (p. 245).
John the Baptist was a man sent (apostello) from God (John 1:6). That verb (“sent,” apostello) is also very technical, expressing the nature of an envoy or an ambassador. Jesus asked (Matthew 21:25), “The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men?” The implication in Matthew by Jesus (cf. Mk 11:30, Lk 20:4) was that God authorized the baptism of John. He got it from heaven.
The Lord Jesus came like John with sending authority. Jesus said, “As my Father hath sent (apostello) me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). God also expects sending for all His workers. It’s more than reading the Great Commission, saying you’ve got it because you read in Matthew 28:18-20. That command went to a plural, “Go ye.” One should assume that “ye” meant people in the group. It did not imply that anyone or everyone could go with His authority (“power”). “You” is also plural in John 20:21.
Romans 10:15
The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 10:15,
And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
The word “preach” is kerusso. This is the same word applied to John the Baptist and his preaching. The kerux is someone to announce the Lord’s coming, to give His message, and to prepare the way for Him. Again, Romans 10:15 asks of the plural, “they.” Who “sends” (apostello) “them”? Christ sends as Head of His church.
John the Baptist “came” in an official capacity. God “sent” John in an official capacity. The New Testament uses the same terminology for every believer. How shall they hear without a kerux? How shall they kerusso except they be apostello? God the Father sent John and Jesus directly. Jesus then sends true believers by means of the church. He heads the church. God sends believers only through true churches.
A Special Cast of Characters
Ones Christ sends constitute a special cast of characters and yet not one, not one because it applies to everyone. Every one bringing glad tidings or the gospel of peace should be and must be sent. That should be every member of a church, a member of Christ’s body with Him as Head.
As a personal example, individual churches sent my wife and I. A true church sent us in 2020 from California to Oregon. The same true church sent us in 2021 from Oregon to Utah. In 2022, a true church in Utah sent us from Utah to Indiana. The church in Indiana sent us for a few months to England at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 Since February 22, 2023, my wife and I function as heralds with authority of or from our church in Indiana. We requested and received letters, which we possess, from three total churches in all this (California, Utah, and Indiana).
God sent John. He came. Sent and came are unique words of sending. God sent Jesus. He came. The same pattern applies to the work of every true believer.
How serious would you take the sending of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States? If the United States of America authorized you for a legitimate task, would you acknowledge the honor bestowed? Can you recognize the greater honor of the Lord Jesus sending you through a true church?
What In a Salvation Presentation Is the Chief Factor Toward Someone’s Conversion?
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his Complete Letters (1868-1871) wrote:
If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.
Just know that if you remain with Christ, you also remain with the truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). That quote though makes it sound like something other than the truth is the main factor leading to saving faith. Others might echo the sentiment of Dostoyevsky, especially when one considers their methodology.
Three Categories
I will divide into three categories of argument or evidence for or vindication of the gospel message unto salvation. This answers, why should I believe the gospel?
Listening to professing conversion testimonies through my whole life, I heard different reasons for someone receiving the gospel. When I listen to apologists talk alone or in conversations with skeptics, I have heard them give varied reasons people will receive the gospel. People state epistemic, moral, and aesthetic arguments, evidence, or vindication. Thought leaders express these three, ranking them for their impact. People include them in their testimonies or salvation stories.
Epistemic
An epistemic presentation or epistemic preaching gives knowledge or information, makes intellectual arguments, trying to persuade the mind of a skeptic or lost person. This would include exegesis of scripture, using the Bible for elucidation of and authority for truth. It connects everything to history and will even show the compatibility of the scriptural account with history, science, archaeology, everything in the real world.
Moral
A moral presentation or preaching relies on the goodness of someone in the life of the skeptic or lost person. The moral quality of a friend, acquaintance, co-worker, or family member impacts him or her to the degree that they acquiesce to that influence. A person with a wrecked life sees this as the only way out. Maybe he sees it as the path away from drugs, obesity, alcohol or other harmful addictions. Perhaps he witnesses the quality and diligence of the efforts of a co-worker, making a moral impression upon him.
Aesthetic
An aesthetic presentation or preaching relies on the beauty or emotional effects of a personal testimony, a moving story, a fearful threat or warning, or just well-told, expressive anecdotes. It also may be the feeling of community or comradery of a group of individuals, how they get along, show friendship and solidarity, and experience satisfaction in all that.
Compelling Argument
Skeptics
Many skeptics would say that Christianity or the Bible doesn’t present compelling epistemic argument to persuade them. It does not provide enough knowledge to give up their present life to follow Jesus Christ. It is harder to believe that a man rose from the dead than to believe that men lied and said he rose from the dead, when he really didn’t. Even if they don’t possess great reasons for not believing the gospel account, they don’t have enough good ones either.
I heard one skeptic, still a skeptic though, report a frightening dream. He was on an airplane. The plane was crashing and in a semi-conscious state, he prayed to God for deliverance. When he woke up, it shook him. In his heart of hearts, despite his skepticism, he acknowledged the innate instinct or impulse to look to God for salvation.
Dostoyevsky
The profession of Dostoyevsky relates to either a moral or aesthetic urge or compulsion. Online Britannica gives some context to his quote that began this article:
In 1847 Dostoyevsky began to participate in the Petrashevsky Circle, a group of intellectuals who discussed utopian socialism. He eventually joined a related, secret group devoted to revolution and illegal propaganda. It appears that Dostoyevsky did not sympathize (as others did) with egalitarian communism and terrorism but was motivated by his strong disapproval of serfdom. On April 23, 1849, he and the other members of the Petrashevsky Circle were arrested.
Dostoyevsky spent eight months in prison until, on December 22, the prisoners were led without warning to the Semyonovsky Square. There a sentence of death by firing squad was pronounced, last rites were offered, and three prisoners were led out to be shot first. At the last possible moment, the guns were lowered and a messenger arrived with the information that the tsar had deigned to spare their lives. The mock-execution ceremony was in fact part of the punishment. One of the prisoners went permanently insane on the spot; another went on to write Crime and Punishment.
Dostoyevsky passed several minutes in the full conviction that he was about to die, and in his novels characters repeatedly imagine the state of mind of a man approaching execution. The hero of The Idiot, Prince Myshkin, offers several extended descriptions of this sort, which readers knew carried special authority because the author of the novel had gone through the terrible experience. The mock execution led Dostoyevsky to appreciate the very process of life as an incomparable gift and, in contrast to the prevailing determinist and materialist thinking of the intelligentsia, to value freedom, integrity, and individual responsibility all the more strongly.
1 Corinthians 1: Greek External Evidence and Jewish Experiences
I expressed here in other articles that men offer their reasons for not believing for which Paul accounts in 1 Corinthians 1. He says, Greeks seek after wisdom, Jews seek after signs. You could say that Greeks want intellectual arguments, something akin to their arguments in the Greek city states. They want external evidence.
Jews seek after signs. They tended in that day toward wanting further experiential proof. Something needed to move them in a personal way to prove reality. Even after the ten plagues in Egypt, most of the Jews still balked at listening to Moses and following what He said, that God told him to say. Scripture indicates that experience is not a basis of faith.
Faith Comes By Hearing the Word of God
The Bible provides the authority for what men need for salvation. In a simple way, it’s Romans 10:17: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” God will use the testimony of others, what they say and do. He might use a bad dream, smiting someone in his inner consciousness. God moves people with overwhelming beauty.
Hebrews 11:6 says that a person requires believing that God is a rewarder. Along these lines, Romans 2:4 says the goodness of God leads someone to repentance. Someone won’t receive Christ unless he thinks he’s better off with Christ as the Captain of his life.
Scripture does more than an epistemic presentation or preaching. It targets the mind, no doubt, but it reaches further than that. It affects the rebellion of a person in His will. Romans 1 says men know God (Rom 1:19). They suppress the truth though (1:18, hold the truth in unrighteousness). Their perverse natures rebel.
I believe scripture indicates in many places that the rebellion relates to human will or pride. People want their own way. They will choose their own way against their own self-interest. Men make choices that doom them, which they make so that they can stay in charge.
The Reach of Scripture
Jesus starts the sermon on the mount with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). A person must understand his own spiritual poverty, that he is not the master of his own fate. He can’t even get what he really wants on his own. He doesn’t have anything to get there. That humility doesn’t just occur. God works in a person through His Word.
When Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God is powerful to divide soul and spirit, that goes further than the mind. The soul includes emotion and will. God works in an epistemic, moral, and aesthetic way, all three. However, it must start with the mind. Someone must believe the gospel is true. God sanctifies through the truth.
Even with the moving of personal testimony and some stirring of emotions, everyone must receive the truth, which starts with the mind. For a person to believe, he must understand the gospel. More occurs through the gospel than just the intellectual, but that must occur.
Today I see the emotional or experiential calls for salvation as the biggest problem in evangelicalism. Evangelicals think more about what people will like or how they feel. They do not want to tell the whole truth, because people won’t like it. God saves people through the truth, not by leaving out the hard parts. Jesus never did that. Let’s do what Jesus did and then all of His apostles.
Cohesion
Agreement
The moral and the aesthetic must agree with the epistemic, but salvation centers on the epistemic. All the events of the gospel happened. Jesus is Savior. He is Lord. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it.
Moral and aesthetic presentation must cohere with the truth. You cannot separate truth from goodness and beauty. People get their view of God very often if not the most often from the aesthetic. If the aesthetic contradicts the epistemic, someone will get the wrong God. He will imagine a different God than presented by scripture. This keeps him from salvation. Even if he receives this god, it isn’t God.
Effect
A good moral example alone doesn’t save someone, but a bad one can hinder or repel salvation though. This includes a lascivious lifestyle presented as a product of the grace of God. Furthermore, regarding aesthetics, someone gets a wrong understanding of God from false worship music. He associates God with lust and worldliness. The right music doesn’t save, but wrong music, false worship, hinders or repels salvation.
The moral and aesthetic are important, but we must focus on the epistemic. Give the whole plan of salvation. Target the understanding. Don’t attempt to persuade with emotions and experiences. Use your stories to illuminate the truth to persuade in the mind. Scripture and the Holy Spirit will take care of the rest.
Men Seek Signs and Wisdom, But God Saves by the Foolishness of Preaching the Gospel
1 Corinthians 1:18-32: The Foolishness of Preaching
In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul said God uses the foolishness of preaching to save. God saves people through the foolishness of preaching. Paul started out this section in verse 18 by saying that “the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.”
It’s not that the cross is foolishness or that preaching is foolishness. People think it is foolishness and Paul is saying, “That thing they think is foolishness; that’s what God uses to save.” God uses a means that does not make sense. Because people think the gospel is foolishness, they become offended from it.
Of all the offenses of the gospel, Paul gives at least two. (1) The Cross, and (2) Preaching. The cross is offensive. It is this way also in at least two ways. (1) Someone on a cross needs saving. Saving comes by a powerful means. (2) The cross would be to say that Jesus is the Savior or the Messiah. I’m not going to write about that in this post. Instead, preaching.
Rather Signs or Wisdom
Paul in essence asks, “Why use preaching when Jews seek after signs and Greeks after wisdom?” (1 Cor 1:22) He divides all men into these two different methodological categories. Jews and Greeks need signs and wisdom, not preaching. In my thirty-five plus years of ministry, I agree that every audience of ministry breaks down into those two general categories.
When you think of signs and wisdom, that might seem like two items people should like and want. They are two biblical words. In a very technical sense, a sign is a miracle. Almost exclusively, I think someone should view a miracle as a sign gift. I will get back to that.
Wisdom. Isn’t Proverbs about wisdom? We pray for wisdom. How could wisdom be bad? Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principle thing.”
Signs and Wisdom
Signs
Signs are something evident in a way of supernatural intervention. If there is a God, won’t He do obvious supernatural things? “If He doesn’t do those, why should I believe in Him? I want to see some signs. Wouldn’t He give me those if He really wanted me to believe in Him? That would be easy for Him, if He really did exist. If God did give me signs, I would believe. Since He doesn’t, then I won’t believe or I don’t need to believe.”
The absence of signs is not that God is not working. He works in thousands of different ways in every moment. They are all supernatural. We even can see how God is working in numbers of ways.
People would say they want more than God’s providential working. That isn’t enough. They want God to make it easy for them to believe by doing something amazing and astounding like what they read that Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles did. People desire direct supernatural divine intervention.
Churches feel the pressure to fake signs, because people want them. They aren’t signs, because they’re faking them, which redefines even what a sign is. Churches also conjure up experiences that give an impression that something supernatural is occurring. People can claim a sign from a lowered expectation of what a sign is. Even if it isn’t something supernatural, people want to feel something at church that might have them think the Holy Spirit is there. This is their evidence for God.
Wisdom
Wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1 isn’t God’s wisdom, but human or man’s wisdom. This could be what people call “science” today. It is scientific proof or evidence. They need data or empirical evidence. This is very brainy arguments.
God is working in the world. It is good to talk about that. This is known as the providence of God. He upholds this world and all that is in it in many various ways. I love that.
A lot of evidence exists out there for everything that is in the Bible: archaeological, scientific, psychological, logical, and historical. People will say that’s what they need and that’s what makes sense to them. Even if they’re not saying that, it makes sense to believers that they need intellectual arguments.
Jews and Greeks in 1 Corinthians 1 represent all apparent seekers in God. If churches and their leaders are seeker sensitive, they would provide signs and wisdom. In a categorical way, that’s what they do. They use the preferred ways of their audience, rather than what God says to do. Apparent seekers are not the source for a method of salvation. God is.
You could give analysis as to the place of signs and wisdom as categorical approaches for ministry philosophy. Churches are rampant with both. Paul is saying, eliminate those as methods. Use the God-ordained method only.
God wants preaching as the method of accomplishing salvation. People are not saved any other way than preaching. Many reasons exist for this, some given in 1 Corinthians 1 and others in other biblical texts.
The Gospel Is the Power of God Unto Salvation, pt. 7
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
Not long ago in evangelicalism, the terminology “lifestyle evangelism” arose. Early in this series, I wrote that the lifestyle is part of the message, but cannot replace the gospel itself. “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16).
In my encounter with lifestyle evangelism, I found it to mean living a life a Christian should live around an unbeliever. From the unbeliever’s experience with that life, he wants to know what caused it, and asks. Then a Christian can explain in a non-pressure kind of way. I believe the words “lifestyle evangelism” originated in the 1976 book by C. Bill Hogue, titled: Love Leaves No Choice: Lifestyle Evangelism. Many characterize this lifestyle as “nice.” Be nice to people. They want you to be nice to them. Then when they ask what’s different, you connect it to the gospel.
Instead of “Lifestyle Evangelism”
In a technical sense, I do not see lifestyle evangelism in the Bible. The life surely should accompany the gospel. It should not contradict the gospel. Salvation comes through the gospel, which means preaching it. That is what I see in the Bible. Many do not think you are “nice” when you preach the gospel to them.
You want to preach the gospel, because it is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation will not occur without the gospel and it comes through preaching. That does not mean that you keep preaching the gospel to those who refuse to hear it.
Based on Romans 1:16, getting the gospel out to people is getting the power of God unto salvation out to people. What the lost need for their salvation stays away from them, sometimes with the reasoning of lifestyle evangelism. They think they do not want the gospel. Usually they cannot know what they need and that they need the gospel, because they do not have the gospel. The gospel gives the power that begins working toward a desire for salvation.
The Effect of the Knowledge of Romans 1:16
When I get up in the morning, I begin thinking about preaching the gospel. Do I mean going door-to-door? I could mean that. I could ring a doorbell, wait for someone to open the door, and start to try to preach the gospel to someone. What if I do not go door-to-door, does that remove the possibility of preaching it?
I think it is easier to get into the preaching of the gospel by going door-to-door. It ensures I will do that. However, in very cold weather areas or during very cold weather times, not everyone will open the door to listen to you preach. I am not attempting to discourage you from preaching in the Winter in cold weather areas. What if people do not open the door because it is so cold or during a certain time of the year, you will not ring door bells or knock on the door because of the cold?
You have to look for and pray for opportunities to preach the gospel. I call this being aggressive. If I do not go door to door and I want to preach it to someone else, I cannot stay in my house. I have to leave the house to see that happen. I still must go to where people are, and then I give attention to possible opportunities. If it is even possible, I must take that opportunity.
Taking the Opportunity with the Gospel
My wife and I right now are living in a small studio apartment. We have no car, so we walk for what we need. We have a very small refrigerator, so we have to go there more often. As I get old (yes, I’m getting old), I have to stop more often. Sit. Rest. That might mean getting a hot beverage somewhere.
It has been very rainy, cloudy, and dark where my wife and I are. It was sunny yesterday for the first time in I don’t know how long. We both got a coffee and we sat outside of the coffee place in the Winter across from a man, who sat outside. I began talking to him and that turned into a gospel conversation with an explanation of the gospel. Opportunities are there for the one looking for them and taking them. I grabbed it, like reaching for something that I want and taking it off the shelf. I just did it.
When I preached the gospel, it was not forced. It is normal for me to bring the gospel into a conversation. I wasn’t going through the motions, like someone who must just get this done. No, I want to give the gospel, that is, to take opportunities. I do, because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16). I assumed that man across from me was lost and nothing was more important to him than salvation, and so, the gospel.
Know How To Start the Gospel
If you are going to preach the gospel to people, you will need to know how to start. At first, you need to plan that. You prepare for it. You think about that first sentence you will say and the direction you will take. The goal is to get from starting a conversation to preaching the gospel. All of this relates to the gospel being the power of God unto salvation.
Before you ever get to how you start a conversation that leads to the gospel, you must think about how you will encounter people. You will not preach to anyone if you do not see anyone. You have to leave the house to do that. Before you plan on how you begin a gospel conversation, you plan on where you will go to see people.
You may see people all the time. People have many different realms in which they meet people. How do they bring Jesus into those contacts? Very often it starts with the trouble for everyone without the gospel. People know they’re in trouble, which is how Paul begins the gospel in the book of Romans.
The gospel conversation could start earlier than the trouble of the lost person. It could begin with the true nature of mankind. He is not an accident. God made him for a purpose.
I like to say to someone, “When Darwin looked at a cell, he saw a blob.” Today when we look at a cell, we see irreducible complexity. Even on a cellular level, life did not arise from an accident.
More to Come
The Gospel Is the Power of God Unto Salvation, pt. 3
If the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, then what does that say about the Holy Spirit and His work? Does He have a part? The gospel is a message from the Bible and the Holy Spirit works through that message. The Holy Spirit speaks through the Bible. I have appreciated the language, “the mouthpiece of the text.” In Ephesians 6:17 language, the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit works, but He works through the Word of God. This helps explain one aspect of how the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
The Substance of the Preaching of the Gospel
Furthermore, the gospel made of scripture or the declaration of scripture itself is powerful, as Hebrews 4:12 says. “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” This couples or harmonizes well with Romans 10:17, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, not some kind of work of the Holy Spirit separate from words. I’m speaking of the unbiblical teaching of “regeneration precedes faith.” No. The gospel is the power of God unto regeneration, part of salvation. Even though scripture does not teach regeneration preceding faith, it says gospel preaching precedes faith. The Holy Spirit uses the message to regenerate, just like the Word of God generated the world in Genesis 1.
The Greek term for “word” in “word of God” in Romans 10:17 is rhema, not logos, both translated “word” in the New Testament. Rhema does not speak of scripture or the Bible as a whole, but an individual passage. Faith does not come from opening the pages of the entire book, but using the specific texts of scripture in the appropriate manner. There isn’t power in a wrong interpretation as if the Bible is a kind of talisman with magical qualities. The power comes through its message, what the text actually says.
What I’m writing fits with 1 Corinthians 1:21, when Paul says “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” This again corresponds to Romans 1:16, written also by the Apostle Paul. “Preaching” isn’t a tone or a style, yelling or bellowing forth. It is the Greek word, kerugma, which refers to the substance of the communication. It is not preaching the act, but preaching as in the message of the declaration. The preaching is what is being said, not how it is being said.
More people are not converted because someone is more clever in his speaking. People are saved because they hear the truth, the right content, and they respond to that. As you read this, you might think that something else could help the gospel along. I don’t think we should separate sincerity and compassion from the message itself. Paul uses the terminology, “speak the truth in love,” in Ephesians 4:15.
Compassion or the Lack and More Either Diminish or Adorn as Part of the Message
First, it is love to speak the truth, as opposed to (1) speaking error and (2) not speaking it, remaining silent. Jesus spoke the truth. Paul spoke the truth. Also though, someone could speak the truth without love or do it with some other wrong motive. This is one of the wrong motives referred by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Though you speak with the great eloquence, that is, with the tongues of men and angels, if you don’t do it with love, it is “sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”
Sounding brass, what I like to call a gong, and tinkling cymbals, which imagines banging on forged metal platters, both percussion types of instruments, don’t have meaning without accompanying instruments that would offer a melody. They also dissipate upon striking, needing to be hit again. Without love, our communication is temporal.
Jude writes at the end of his epistle (v. 22) that compassion makes a difference to the presentation. How does this harmonize with the gospel being the power of God unto salvation? Is it better put, gospel and love are the power of God unto salvation? No, love itself is part of the message. Romans 1:16 stands. This fits with an adaption of the Marshall McLuhan statement, “the medium is the message.” The absence of love lessens the message, diminishes it. I believe accompanying truths buttress this.
Peter says that good works themselves, when beheld in a believer, have an effect of their “glorify[ing] God in their day of visitation” (1 Pet 2:11-12). The absence of the good works undermine the message. They are part of the message of the gospel. Paul speaks in Titus 2:10 of “adorn[ing] the doctrine of God our Saviour” with “all good fidelity.” “Fidelity” translates the word for “faith.” Several other passages provide further evidence for this point.
Good works alone, fidelity, compassion and other accompanying traits of the message do not act as “the gospel.” They are not “the gospel.” Paul extols the preaching of the gospel by those with a bad motive. He says in Philippians 1:15-16 that men preached “Christ even of envy and strife” and “of contention, not sincerely.” Paul rejoiced that they preached the gospel. He didn’t say their message should not have been preached at all.
People are often quick to judge the works and the motives of those who preach the gospel. They did that with Paul himself. I write to make this point though, that the gospel doesn’t need the accompanying aspects of a good motive, good works, and effective style to work. If it is the gospel, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.
Every professing Christian at times thinks of himself or feels he is not worthy to preach the gospel. He could not possibly represent it with his life. That is not to say he should not strive to live a life that matches or correlates with a true gospel that he preaches.
I’m saying that a weak confidence due to personal struggle with the flesh should not impede or stop gospel preaching. This is one reason why someone puts on the helmet of salvation before he picks up the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians 6. The helmet protects the head, the source of thoughts that debilitate spiritual warfare, using the Word of God.
More to Come
35th Anniversary of the Church I Planted in California, pt. 4
Bridget and I arrived in San Francisco in late August, joining Calvary Baptist Church there. We found our first apartment in the Marlesta apartments in Pinole. She succeeded at finding a job as a teller at Mechanics Bank. I found one at the Big Five sporting goods. We rented the multipurpose room at Ohlone Elementary School in Hercules. We printed brochures and hired someone to paint two street signs. Our first service we set for Sunday, October 18, 1987. We copied flyers as an invitation for that date.
My wife and I moved into our first apartment. Both of us started working about thirty hours a week. Our missions support would cover only part of the immediate expenses of the new church. I knocked on the first door next to Ohlone School and started covering the town of Hercules with the gospel. For the first month and a half, I invited everyone to our first service.
After arrival, I heard people use the terminology, North Bay. I thought Hercules was North Bay. Early I wanted a name that included a larger geography, so I chose “North Bay Baptist Church.” No one told me, “Hercules isn’t North Bay.” It wasn’t. Hercules is East Bay. Despite that, we still used that name for the first year and a half of our church. We designed a logo with the name.
At least 100 people promised to come for our first service. I was too ignorant not to know how unlikely that was. I expected it. Bridget’s uncle and aunt, who lived down in Santa Cruz, would drive up. We had one family from the sending church who lived in Hercules. They would come. Until that first service on October 18, Bridget and I attended all the services at Calvary Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Every late Saturday night, I set out two wooden portable handmade signs in front of the Ohlone school. I also did this for the very first service. One was larger that sat near the street pointing toward the parking lot. The other sat closer to the multipurpose room, visible from the parking lot, pointing toward the multipurpose room. It was a sandwich board style with the same image on both sides, hinged and propped up against each other.
My wife and I were paying for the multipurpose room in a public elementary school by the hour on Sunday. We rented it for five hours in the morning and two hours at night. This time allowed for us to set up and take down every week. The school had a piano and a podium. We brought a table in front of the podium.
I hung a banner behind the podium that said, “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth,” which was the scriptural theme from the beginning of our church. In the back we had a table with literature and offering plates. All the tables had table cloths. The front table had some kind of flower arrangement on it. This was a ritual every Sunday.
The philosophy I held for the building was that God built the church through His Word. Such a building, good or average, would not stop someone with a true motive from visiting or coming. Even though 100 people promised to come the first Sunday, 7 came.
As you read this, having 7 new people come to church might sound good today. I really did think they would all come. One family of four, the one that lived in Hercules from the sending church, came the first Sunday. We had several others, family and people traveling from other churches, but only the seven invited who said they would come our first Sunday.
What would happen next? I folllowed up on the seven and the 93 or so others who said they would come, but didn’t. From that point, I could start telling the story of those who came, those who stayed a little while, and those who were with us for years. Some from that first year are still in the church. No one from that first Sunday stayed. A couple kept coming off and on that first year, then they were done. The work had begun though.
That first Sunday I started preaching through John and my first sermon was in John 1:1. I continued that series on Sunday mornings until I was done. Every sermon was typed with a manual typewriter on regular typing paper.
I believed preaching was most important to the founding, strength, and continuation of our church. Long term, I believed it was most important in every way. Jesus told Peter, Feed my sheep. I didn’t have many sheep yet, but I knew this church would grow from evangelism, yes, but also from exposition of scripture.
People had personal computers in 1987. I knew one person with a computer at that time. It wasn’t until later that first year that I bought a used IBM Selectric with a removeable ball. The first half of that first year I typed a bulletin every week on a manual typewriter. All my flyers were literally cut and paste. That’s where the terminology, cut and paste, came from. Each letter was cut from a sheet of stylish letters and then pasted. We really have it good today when it comes to laying out printed materials.
My wife and I were working, so we had regular work hours at the bank and the sporting goods store. We lived in an second floor single bedroom apartment in Pinole. We bought a used bed, used mattress, used sofa, used kitchen table, used chairs, and a used lamp. I think all our furniture cost us two or three hundred dollars total. When I wasn’t at work, I jumped into the Dodge Omni and went door to door. Sometimes my wife came with me. We started covering every house and apartment in Hercules, moving out concentrically from the building where we met.
During the first year, up the street from Ohlone School I rang a doorbell with my wife and preached the entire gospel to a man, I remember, named Brian. I know his last name too, even though this was the last time I ever talked to him. Why? He prayed a prayer. He made a profession of faith. My wife was with me and afterwards, I asked her, “Do you think he really got saved?” She said, “No.” We argued a little bit, but the reason I still remember it is because Brian didn’t really receive Christ.
I had evangelized for years, since I was a teenager. I preached to hundreds of people. Nothing compared to what I was doing in the San Francisco Bay Area. I felt like I knew little to nothing about what I needed to do. I began studying evangelism, reading my Bible, studying books, and listening to recordings. How would a church start without anyone hearing the gospel and receiving Christ? That was why we came to California.
To Be Continued
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