Judgement. A MOST unpopular doctrine!

What is the most unpopular doctrine in Christianity today? What generates the largest negative comment and response? Homosexuality? Pre-marital sex? Giving and tithing? I would venture to say these are all unpopular – but the root of most of those is Judgement.

The very certain and coming judgement of God.

We don’t talk much about judgement in our society. It just isn’t popular or easy listening. It is a hard doctrine to fit in easily with ‘God is love’ and ‘God loves you’ – because our perception of love is twisted.

It is also a tough subject to talk about because it is easy to get wrong. The way it is portrayed in some circles makes it easy to see why some people call Christians bigots and haters (and by default, they also call God a bigot and hater).

And yet, It is clear throughout the Bible, that at some point in the future, there is going to be a judgement. In one way or another, we will face up to God, and what we have (or have not) done in our lives will be weighed and measured. Our sin will be brought to light – public and private. Our hearts will be laid bare before the Creator of the Universe.

That is what makes it a most unpopular doctrine.

Why do I think it is at the root of other arguments? Because if there is no judgement, there is no consequence for sin. So then how you define sin is how you define judgement. If something is a sin, then in the absence of forgiveness there is only judgement – but if in some way we can call something not a sin (some of the key topics of our age are about defining what is and is not sin), then there is no problem, is there?

I think we forget one little detail though. It is not us that defines the boundaries of what sin is and is not. God, through His word defines right and wrong – not us, not our leaders, not our pastors, not democracy.

2 Peter 2:4–10a (ESV)
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

God does love us – even in the verses above, which would count as a pretty harsh tirade against sin, love shines through (isn’t it interesting how we oft will quote the part about the Lord knows how to rescue the Godly from trials – but fail to mention the rest?). But there still remains, and always will remain, the certainty that at some time in the future, a time when no one can predict, God will judge.

If you are not comfortable with the fact God will judge (and lets be honest, it’s not a comfortable topic!), I suggest you read more. Read more about Who is God – you can do that here and in many other places. Also know that God is not ALL about judgement – there is more to God than judging the world – God is patient, God is Merciful, God is Righteous and Just. God is now skewed like our perceptions, but constant, true, unchanging and reliable. Before you jump on the Bigot Bandwagon, make sure you learn more first!

A New Years Thought

Today, January 1, begins a new year in our measure of counting days and months and years. Our human measure of counting time.

Some of us will make resolutions we may just keep, or may just make them again like last year, and the year before.

Many of us will sit down and reflect on the last year. Our failures, our successes, our triumphs, our losses. From that we might well learn something about ourselves, and resolve to change for the better.

For everyone then, whether last year was a success or a failure, whether last year was full of triumph or mired in sorrow, I have a message for you. God does not change. What He is doing in this world has not changed with the dropping of the ball in Times Square, with the ticking of a clock from one day to another.

 Hebrews 13:8 (ESV)
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

It is useful to sit down and reflect on the year past, and to maybe see where in our lives we can make changes. But our changes need to be guided by God, so that we will do His will! Who is Lord of your life? You? Or Jesus Christ? When you choose to become a Christian, you choose to submit your life to Jesus – not just a bit of your life, not just most of your life, but simply your life.

If you have submitted your life to Him, then let Him guide you on what you should do this year. Don’t sit down and make plans for tomorrow, about what you will eat and what you will do. But sit down and pray to God that He will guide you in what He wants you to do. Maybe you are already doing the right things, maybe you just need a little course adjustment to your life. Maybe He is calling you to turn around completely – and live for Him.

So what will you do this year?

James 1:16–18 (ESV)
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.  

Why should I listen to Teachers when they could be wrong?

Yesterday, I asked the question ‘Why should I read the Bible myself?’. In it I posed some very positive reasons why we should – and I still fully support those. But taken too far, you may start to think that you can interpret it all yourself, and that other sources of input are therefore useless or unnecessary.

I will start with the answer – they are not useless, but valuable!

I can honestly say in my experience, that both personal reading and interacting with others, as well as submitting to teaching from trusted sources is extremely valuable. And lest I look like degrading the value of the knowledge and learning of those that spend years in seminary –  what they have learned can be very valuable indeed, and help us in our growth – as that is what they are called to do – help us! Here are just a few of the advantages to submitting to the teaching and guidance of others (with the caveat that you also need to be looking yourself!)

Teachers (elders, preachers, pastors, etc) can help us to understand hard to read passages in the Bible. No one will deny that there are challenging passages in the Bible, a little help now and again from those that commit their lives to study is a good thing.

Teachers can help us see things that we wouldn’t see otherwise, because they have spent the time to learn much of the context of the Bible. See my example below.

Having other people input into our lives stops us from stagnating in one area, and can challenge us in areas we may avoid ourselves.

Proverbs 1:2–7 (ESV) (Bold mine)

To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

So, in conjunction with reading the Bible yourself, you should also be submitting yourself to someones teaching! I personally search out teaching regularly, as I want to know more about God, more about the Bible, more about Jesus. It is just how God has made me – as a seeker for more.

Let me give you a direct example.

Yesterday, I learned from someone that Philippi was a Roman Colony – which means that many of the people in the church there would have been Roman Citizens. Privileged people living in a society which respected them. I had never realized this, and so now the call to live humbly in Philippians 2 is much more pronounced, radical and revolutionary even! I may have never learned this without this particular teacher, and so despite all my personal study, teaching is still extremely valuable.

So I stand by yesterdays call – Ad Fontes! – but also find good sources of teaching, and learn from them. And then you will truly grow in the knowledge and truth.

Why should I read the Bible myself?

Here is a tough question for you today.

Why should I read the Bible myself?

On the ‘I shouldn’t’ side, come a large number of persuasive arguments. I’m not trained. I don’t fully understand. I didn’t go to seminary to learn. How can I hope to get it right when even the experts sometimes disagree? Isn’t that why the pastor preaches every week – to teach us what we cannot learn ourselves?

Many of these arguments rely on a misconception – that you cannot learn anything about the Bible yourself, but you need to rely on someone else to teach you. And much of this comes from the church in the Middle Ages who decreed that the Bible can only be interpreted by the church – ie, by the ‘ordained clergy’. There is a pinch of wisdom here (just a pinch) – it is easy for one person to go off track and start teaching strange doctrines by completely misinterpreting the Bible. But the response of the middle ages church was wrong and extreme – to ban common language access to the scriptures for fear that someone might interpret it in their own way (and quite possibly to ensure that they held onto the ‘power’ that went along with being the sole interpreter of the scriptures – but that is a discussion for another day).

What I want to say today is this. You can read the Bible yourself, and learn from it. And more than that, you – you personally – need to.

2 Peter 2:1–3 (ESV)
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Let me ask you a question – how do you know if someone is preaching truth or lies? How do you know if someone is teaching about God – or bringing in destructive heresies for their own greed? It is not always as easy as ‘looking at their lives’. We cannot always easily discern, on our own, what is good teaching and what is not.

But there is a way to know.

You need to read the Bible yourself. Not just a little bit here and there, but regular reading and thought. Then when someone brings a ‘new’ teaching – you can see for yourself whether it is truth or heresy. I know in my life I have heard some pretty strange doctrines, and sometimes even been ‘taken’ by these doctrines for a time until I understood and learned better.

During the reformation – when the protestant church was formed, there was a call – ‘Ad Fontes’. It literally means ‘Back to the Sources’. The call was for people not to just rely on the teaching of the official church, agreeing instantly with whatever it said no matter how good or bad it sounded. Instead the call was for everyone – trained and untrained alike – to go back to the sources, back to the Bible, and see what it really said; see what it really meant. And when people like Martin Luther and the Anabaptists did that 400 years ago, it started the process of the reformation, where people started really looking into the teaching of the Bible and seeing what was really true – what was really right.

So how do you protect yourself? How do you personally grow in your Christianity? Ad Fontes! Don’t just trust in the teaching of everyone who will preach at you, from the pulpit, TV or internet (me included), but go back to the sources yourself and see what is really right, what really honors God, and what really preaches Jesus as He should be preached.

(A small final word of warning – don’t start thinking everyone is wrong! There are many good teachers in the world, many good pastors, many people with a good honest heart who themselves ‘study to be approved’ before God, and teach you the same – there really are people you can trust. As you read and grow yourself, you will gain more and more wisdom to understand what is right and what is not – don’t read a single passage and immediately go and proclaim a new doctrine, but study and grow in wisdom first, and seek God before jumping to conclusions!)

Read your Bible! Ad Fontes!

Colossians 1:9-10 (ESV)
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

I Shall Not Want – a Christmas Message?

I noticed a really interesting trend on my blog over the last few days – I am always interested in what people are searching for, what people want to know about. In the last few days most of the people visiting searched for this -

I shall not want

Typically then, they end up at the Bible study I did on Psalm 23:1 earlier this year.

But could that be a Christmas message? I guess it isn’t directly related to the birth of Jesus. I guess if you stretch the analogy, Jesus being laid in a manger could link to the Lord is my Shepherd – but I think that is doing a lot of stretching…

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

What a great theme for Christmas! Jesus, our Lord, is the one who guides us. He is the one who directs us, who cares for us, who protects us. He is the one who leads us to where we can do what we are called to do. So what is left for us?

I shall not want.

I am not going to covet the biggest present, or whatever those around me got, or everything i see in the latest catalog. I am not going to focus on myself this Christmas – on what I want to get, on being first at the table to get the best part of the meal, on getting the most presents, on being the focus of attention. Instead, I can proclaim ‘The Lord, who condescended to become a man when He was born in a manger of the Virgin Mary, and who lived and died for my sins on a cross, only to rise again, is my shepherd. I certainly shall not want!’

What a great theme this Christmas!