The thread of Christianity depends on a unity from one generation to the next of mutual understanding of our important words. Hence the Word of the Week.
Heresy
Two weeks ago in the previous Word of the Week, I’d posted about Orthodoxy. In the religious context, Orthodoxy means truth or doctrine, that is accepted and widely held the global church. Heresy is a teaching or belief that stands in opposition to the orthodox teaching, so much so that to believe it, one essentially declares himself not a Christian. Here is Matt Slick at Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry to explain.
Heresy
by Matt Slick
Heresy is a false teaching. It is a belief or idea that is in contradiction to orthodoxy. In the context of Christianity, heresy is that which deviates from standard biblical teaching. Examples of heresy would be polytheism, a denial of the resurrection of Christ, a teaching that salvation is obtained by works, etc. The Christian church has experienced many attacks by heretics throughout the centuries, but it has fought them successfully – even though many persist. There are modern-day heresies. For example, Mormonism which teaches God is an exalted man from another planet and that we can become gods. The Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the Trinity, deny the deity of Christ, and deny salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Roman Catholicism also and works to salvation and promotes Mary worship.
“Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in on attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than truth itself,” (Irenaeus Against Heresies 1.2).
The word “heresy” comes from the Greek ‘hairesis’ which means “choosing” or “faction.” At first, the term heresy did not carry the negative meaning it does now. But, as the early church grew in its scope and influence throughout the Mediterranean area, various teachers proposed controversial ideas about Christ, God, salvation, and other biblical themes.
It became necessary for the church to determine what was and was not true according to the Bible. For example, Arius of Alexandar (A.D. 320) taught that Jesus was a creation. Was this true? Was this important? Other errors arose. The Docetists taught that Jesus wasn’t human. The Modalists denied the Trinity. The Gnostics denied the incarnation of Christ. Out of necessity, the church was forced to deal with these heresies by proclaiming orthodoxy; and in so doing, condemnation upon these heresies and the heretics became a reality.
I greet you all and with good news that He loves us and is waiting to call us, His bride, home to Him soon. He is preparing the place in which we will dwell for all eternity, untainted by sin at last. We will gaze at one another through the spotless lens of the Holy One who redeemed us to Himself, and we will love Him and each other perfectly. His light will shine upon us untainted by clouds, pure as the blazing Light that shines supreme, transcendent, unmatched, our eyes shining as the reflection of His matchless glory. Angels will sing praises to Him and we will join in, love glowing out among all creation in glory. Why He chooses to share Himself with us, I will never know. Why He desires communion with sinful people (made holy), I’ll never understand. But that knowledge and fact only makes me love Him all the more. He saved a wretch like me, and changed me from sinful creature to daughter of God!
I sincerely hope you all are well. If you are not, then I hope that good news of what awaits us revives you, that we have the perfect assurance of the incomparable riches of His grace. His grace is sufficient for me, and if I feel this overwhelmed with it now on earth, what will it be like when I get there? Think on that brethren.
“Beloved, these things are true, these things are noble, these things are just, these things are pure, these things are lovely, these things are of good report, there is virtue and they is praiseworthy—meditate on these things”. (Phil 4:8-9 paraphrased)
God will judge the unrighteous. But we love Jesus and love casts out all fear. Whoever is in Jesus has no fear, because He is GOOD! His promises are true. His mercy endures forever. See these promises-
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; (Lamentations 3:25)
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. (Psalm 27:14)
In that day they will say, Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation. (Isaiah 25:9)
Are you glad in His salvation? We wait, and we love, and we endure, but are we glad? He saved us! The most important Person in the universe who was and is and is to come, came down from his Holy Mountain to serve us, teach us, and save us. He left glory to give us His righteousness so we could dwell with Him in glory. Be glad in it. Even as we wait for the trumpet call, we have more days to rejoice in the hope in us, and to be the light to others in that hope.
This post first appeared on The End Time in September 2011. It’s been slightly edited.
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Many people believe in a god. If, as people say, ‘a god’ does exist, then it stands to reason He is far above us in ways and thoughts. And if He is far above us in ways and thoughts it stands to reason that He is perfectly holy, just, and wise. For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. (Ephesians 2:14).
It also stands to reason that if He is so far above us, then we are below Him in ways and thoughts and wisdom. We are not equals, that is for sure.
Now, the standout attribute of our God (not ‘a god,’ because He is the only one, of course) is that He is holy. Holiness is described as “A quality of perfection, sinlessness, and inability to sin that is possessed by God alone.”
What is it that makes Him holy and us not holy? Our sin. Sin is anything we think, say, or do that displeases God. It is cosmic treason, as RC Sproul said. It is disobeying His holy Law.
Since we cannot go through life perfect, then we sin, and we displease God. Our sins keep us from having a relationship with Him because He is holy and we are not. Every sin we commit is a brick in a wall between us and Him. If we die with that wall there, it stays there for eternity and we will go to hell and be separated from Him forever. There.we are punished for those sins we had committed while alive on earth.
But He made a way for us, sinful though we are, to have a relationship with Him. He desires communion with His people. The way He made, is through His son Jesus. He said to His Son, (Hebrews 5:5; Psalm 2:7) in effect, ‘I am going to ask you to set aside your divinity, pour yourself into human flesh, and live a life on earth, be accused though you are sinless, and die a terrible death on the cross. You will exhaust all My wrath for sin, being the sacrificial Lamb in the people’s stead. Once your blood is shed, it will pay the debt humanity owes me for their sins and they will be covered.’ Jesus said ‘OK.’
After Jesus died on the cross and was buried, on the third day God made Him come to life again. He ascended and dwells with God in heaven. He welcomes believers home to Him when they die! (Hebrews 1:3) It is simultaneously a beautiful and a horrific plan.
What a person has to do to find faith is to believe that Jesus was and is the son of God, died for our sins, and rose to life again. If you believe that then by default you also believe that you know you’re a sinner and you ask Him to forgive the sins. Because His blood covers you, your confession and belief will enact your pardon. The brick wall will come down. We are justified and regenerated.
Jesus says that once you believe, THEN He makes all the truths of the Bible come alive in your brain. The Bible will no longer be a dry, dusty, incomprehensible book but the Living Word from a Living God who loves us. You know what else He does for us after a you believe? He sends the Holy Spirit to be inside us to help us resist sin and temptation. Oh, we still sin, we’re human after all. But the more we submit to the Spirit’s leading, the less we WANT to sin, and the more He helps us resist it. Like I said, it is a relationship.
For that relationship to begin, you must first understand that you sin. Do you believe this?
How can a person obtain faith? “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.“—Romans 10:17. Charles Spurgeon preached on this topic, “How can I obtain faith?“. Click the link to read the whole sermon. He began with saying this:
It is difficult to make men understand that the salvation of the gospel is not by works but entirely by grace, that it is not presented to men as the reward of their own endeavors, but is given to them freely upon their accepting it by an act of simple faith or trust in Jesus Christ.
That is all there is. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. We obtain faith by grace. It is all His grace given to us.
Faith comes by hearing the Word. “For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14).
Original cast of the classic PBS period drama, Upstairs, Downstairs
Do you remember the original Upstairs, Downstairs TV show? The show ran on PBS from 1971-1975. It was the original famous period drama, depicting the doings of a wealthy Edwardian family in London from the point of view of the aristocrats living upstairs, and from the servants who lived downstairs. It was set in the time of 1903-1930.
In the PBS show Downton Abbey, we see another show depicting the lives of the aristocrats who lived upstairs and the servants who lived downstairs. This show ran from 2010 to 2015 and was also set in the Edwardian period, with its events spanning from 1912-1926.
I love a good Edwardian period piece. Even as a high school aged girl watching the 1970s Upstairs, Downstairs show for the first time, I was fascinated with the downstairs. Why do the servants do what they do? They often spoke of a life ‘in service’. What is it like to spend one’s life in service to a household? How do they maintain a lifetime of loyalty to a family?
Edwardian servants were expected to be very disciplined and reliable. …A butler was the most important servant of an Edwardian house and acted as the liaison between the servant and his master. Source
In Upstairs, Downstairs, Hudson was the Butler. This was the highest rank of servants that existed. He was responsible for the staff’s training and perfect execution of their various jobs, the goal of which was the smooth life of the lords and ladies upstairs. Hudson said his calling was a life “in service.” Though his sister ran a boarding house and his brother was a civil engineer, Hudson felt his calling was to serve others in a household. He did so with utter dignity and pride.
In Downton Abbey, it was Carson who managed the household staff. In the show we see him training the other servants on how to set the table, using rulers to ensure symmetry in the place settings, exhorting them to be invisible, not to draw attention to themselves, but to perform the job as smoothly as possible.
Carson the Butler’s exactitude to detail, his nearly round the clock call to service, his extreme loyalty to the lord of the household were all part of the package. The benefit to the servant was that he had a home to live in, a lifetime tenure usually, and salary.
‘Carson’ in the period drama Downton Abbey
Hudson and Carson were fictional characters, but their lives were based on millions of men who performed the faithful service. I’m sure by now you see exactly where I’m going with this metaphor. ‘Hudson’ and ‘Carson’ (and the men they were based on) served their lord with all their strength and mind and body. They did it for what? A bed under a roof, and a salary?
How is our service to the Lord of all? We are called to a life of service when He regenerates us. We are new creatures. Instead of serving satan and our own lusts, we now serve Lord Jesus in any and every way He desires. We have been released from a life in service to the devil, and now in gratitude and obedience, in Spirit power, we must serve Jesus with all our strength, soul, mind and soul.
‘Hudson’ polishing an item
When we watch a period drama like the ones I’ve mentioned, and we see the loyalty and attention to detail, the ceaseless service of the Butler, sometimes we might wryly curl our lip and say, ‘man those guys were rigorous!’ Yet how rigorous are we in our service to the One whom we owe everything? Those guys did it for the pride in their job, and a bed and a few dollars. We are co-heirs with Christ, who achieved a perfect life so He could hang on the cross and endure all of God’s wrath, for us. He did it in obedience to the Father. Jesus was rigorous in every detail, diligent and exact in following the Law, all so He could die on the cross in abject humiliation, endure terrifying wrath, so that we could live.
When we see Hudson carefully polishing the ash tray so it shines and glitters, we see a man who takes every task, no matter how low or insignificant, to its complete end in pride and honor. All of the household tasks were ultimately done for the honor of the aristocrat living upstairs.
As for us, when we ready ourselves for church, do we do the same? Or do we throw on any old clothes, arrive huffing at church just before the opening, plop in the pew, and mindlessly begin singing?
When we hop in the car to deliver a lesson to a small group, have we been diligent in seeking the highest and best possible outcome? Researching in detail, crafting our sentences with delight and conviction? Did we even pray?
Before setting off to vacuum the church and dust the pews, do we take as much care as an Edwardian butler would have in ensuring the place of worship is gleaming and showing its best, on behalf of the Lord upstairs?
If the butlers of old served with loyalty and honor, diligence and exactitude, how much more so, should we? We serve others on earth, and ultimately we serve for the dignity and honor of the Lord in heaven.
Let’s take stock of our service to the Lord today.
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. (Galatians 5:13)
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. (Psalm 2:11)
We live in an age where fellow Christians say that to speak of someone specific being a false teacher is mean, or ill-mannered, or inappropriate. “Just let them alone, God will take care if them,” they say. Or they claim that speaking against false teaching is uncivil, and to “Just pray for them.” Many of thems ay, “You can’t know if he/she is false, you don’t know their heart.”
The skill of discernment (and the gift, too) involves vigilance. It is extremely important. John MacArthur wrote,
In its simplest definition, discernment is nothing more than the ability to decide between truth and error, right and wrong. Discernment is the process of making careful distinctions in our thinking about truth. In other words, the ability to think with discernment is synonymous with an ability to think biblically.
Every book of the New Testament (except Philemon) has some passage or chapter devoted to its writer urging fellow Christians to practice discernment in order to combat some false teaching or other. Jude is entirely taken up with the topic. And the exhortations in those books of the Bible are not to stand by and let false teachers be. Those admonishments are not to tolerate false teaching and wait until Jesus comes back to judge it. Not only the NT writers, but Jesus also has some very explicit thoughts about churches that practice discernment. And those instructions are not to overlook it, be passive abou ti, or ignore it. Quite the opposite.
You might know that the book of Revelation is a considered an apocalyptic book. It deals with last things, and Jesus’ return in victory. However the first two chapters are letters to churches of the time, but also warnings and encouragements for us in this day and all present days. Some churches received a commendation only, some received a hard warning only and most churches received a little of both.
In the letter to the church at Ephesus, we read that Jesus directed the apostle John to write,
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. (Revelation 2:2).
In this letter, Jesus opens by congratulating the church for being discerning. They are lauded for their persevering efforts to retain the highest purity possible in their church. How? First, they can’t bear the evil ones in their midst, and second, they tested those who call themselves teachers. Their discernment was apparently a skilled discernment, because Jesus congratulates them for worming out which teachers were false.
Never, ever let anyone tell you that discernment is unnecessary.
John MacArthur preached on this verse from Revelation, saying in part,
Beyond that, verse 3 says something else about them: ‘You cannot tolerate evil men. You cannot tolerate evil men.’ They were intolerant of sin. They were sensitive to the presence of evil. They hated evildoers as God hates evildoers. They resented evil; they resented evildoers. They resented sin; they resented sin in the church. They recognized the damage that sin does to the fellowship and the testimony. They saw that sin in the church destroys the unity of the church and destroys the testimony of the church. They hated all that was morally bad, all that was spiritually bad. They knew that a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
…Or, you could say this: ‘You put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false.’ This is a church with discernment.
Where does discernment come from? Well, where does discernment come from; clearly, it comes from a knowledge of the truth, right? The only way you can discern error is know what? Truth. You have to have the truth in order to see the error.
Many evil people come into the congregations, particularly in the early church. Satan was infiltrating these early churches all the time. Judaizers, false teachers were everywhere. This church took the warning seriously.
Our Christian forebears were fallible men and women, but so are we. And we fool ourselves to simply assume that we would have had the courage to act differently when every societal pressure was pushing one direction. They had blind spots which we see clearly now. But we too have blind spots that our children and grandchildren will speak of with shame.
Greear was specifically speaking of slavery, but his concept applies to theology too. There has never been a time when the fundamentals and the tangential items of the faith were completely settled. During Jesus’ day, His ‘new’ theology, which was really the original theology, was misapplied, misunderstood, and rejected. Even Nicodemus, THE Teacher of Israel, whiffed the concepts of suffering servant/sacrificial atonement/new birth. The Pharisees certainly didn’t get it and at one point even John the Baptist, who’d had the Spirit in him since the womb, asked if Jesus was the one or should they wait for another.
During the Apostolic age, there were many points of theology to be settled, and the succeeding councils during the centuries after to hash them out are testament to the fluid nature of man’s understanding of the Kingdom. Early church fathers were certainly fallible men. Origen’s theology (c. 184-c. 253) was hailed either as the “height of faithful theology or the depth of horrendous error.”
Augustine (354-430) adhered to many theologies that were solid but he clung to many that were not. Hailed as a brilliant thinker, at the same time, his philosophies “also considerably skewed the Christian vision.”
I could go on, but far be it for anyone to think that the faith delivered once for all to the saints is understood widely by all the saints for all time. In every era men struggle with certain elements of it due to their cultural blind spots of the time in which we live.
Jonathan Edwards
By the time of the Reformation, the understanding of the faith delivered once for all to the saints had been polluted beyond saving, and the Puritans started afresh, breaking completely with the Roman Catholic Church.
Suffice to say that the theologians in each era were duly conscientious of their thinking, striving to understand all that is required, and to explain it in ways the common man could understand, too. But they had blind spots, being products of their own generation. This is the way of it. We in this era have blind spots too, being products of our own generation. When we read a modern book, we nod and say, yes, yes, not realizing that the constructs of our own culture and time are blinding us to this or to that. Our grandchildren will look at our books of the millennium na shake their heads at us.
This is why it is important to read the products of the ancient and historical thinkers. We see their blind spots clearly, and we are happily exposed to theology that can and does enhance our understanding of the faith.
But oftentimes the ancients and historical fathers are difficult to read as well. Language changes. When reading Spurgeon, (1834 –1892) his words seem quaint. Backing up a hundred years, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is a bit more difficult. By the time we get to the Puritan John Owen, (1616-1683) his works present comprehension difficulties nearly impossible to overcome. Even the great theologian JI Packer called Owen “cumbersome” and Kris Lundgaard took an hour to read just 8 or so pages of Owen, re-reading sentences three and four times and using a dictionary to look up certain words. The common man who finds these hurdles insurmountable miss out on great thinkers and founding fathers of the past.
What to do?
I have a few tips on how to grapple the ancients and the historical men who’ve contributed mightily to the faith but whose works present difficulties.
I’ve found that pairing books helps. For example, this summer I read John Bunyan’s spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners paired with A Pilgrim Who Made Progress, the Life Story of John Bunyan, by William Deal. I found that Deal’s book offered historical information that helped me understand some of Bunyan’s spiritual choices. That Deal’s book is aimed at the Youth demographic was actually a help.
If you’re interested in Augustine’s Confessions, the biography by Peter Brown is a good pairing. Brown’s treatment of Augustine seems to have become THE standard bio of Augustine since its publication nearly fifty years ago. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography.
Another kind of paring I’ve done is for example, I read Kris Lundgaard’s The Enemy Within paired with John Owen’s Indwelling Sin. Lundgaard’s book is essentially a re-write/Cliff’s Notes to Owen’s towering work. My version of Owen’s book was from the Puritan Paperback series. Where Lundgaard’s is a total re-write using modern examples, the PP series is a slightly edited and slightly modernized version of the original Puritan work. It’s put out by Banner of Truth Trust, an organization, you can, well, trust!
Fra Angelico, The Conversion of St. Augustine
I read Lundgaard on Mondays and the same Owen chapter the next day. I found that Lundgaard’s version helped me prepare my heart and my mind for the depth of the main meal Owen serves up.
Lundgaard also wrote Through the Looking Glass: Reflections on Christ that Change Us as a modernized re-write of Owen’s Glory of Christ, so that could be another pairing.
For Moby Dick, a theological but difficult book, (1851) there are many are study guides online. I used this one as I read the book itself.
For Pilgrim’s Progress, (a 1678 Christian allegory) there are study guides also. I bought The Pilgrim’s Progress Study Guide by Maureen L. Bradley.
The Pilgrim’s Progress, written by John Bunyan over 300 years ago, is one of the most widely-circulated books ever to be published in the English language. In spite of its popularity in the past, many people today are not familiar with this masterpiece. Join Dr. Derek Thomas as he leads a guided tour of this allegorical work, showing that Christians have as much to gain from this book today as they did hundreds of years ago.
The first video is free. The remainder of the series are fee-based.
So, you can pair books with re-writes of books. Or you can pair books with a biography of the author you’re trying to read. You can use a study guide. Go through a teaching series. Buy a Puritan Paperback which is lightly modernized and abridged.
Any way you do it, don’t let the classics languish. There is a multitude of good theology in them we should not lose our connection to. I’ve offered some ways to ease the difficulty so to speak. If you have ideas, please do share them.
I saw a couple of quotes today one after the other (not linked or published on purpose, just happenstance) that made me think about music in worship once again.
Not to debate contemporary vs. traditional. Though I’m a huge traditionalist, I’m also a realist, and I know there has been good music written after 1900, though, lol.
I enjoyed my own church’s service yesterday, as I always do. We are a nearly three-year church plant. We have a plurality of elders (4), a time of confession during the service, and good music. It’s a mixture of old and new. The team takes care to select songs and hymns that match the theme of the sermon.
Music isn’t all there is to a service, meaning, it’s not primary. But it’s not secondary either. It’s important and has its place. Yesterday I was thinking about how important it is when we hear the word preached and when we sing and hear the song words sung. It is all supposed to edify us.
We should be careful about the words of the music we sing and ensure that those words communicate truth. —@RCSproul
My friend Rachel tweeted,
Rachel, @REL4077
8:21 PM – 29 Jul 2018
I’ve listened to a lot of Christian music from the 70s/80s and a lot of CM from that time focused so much on Christ’s return, who Jesus is, and the need to share the Gospel. What happened since then that we have songs about reckless love and our “messed up” lives?!! Give me Jesus.
I agree. To that end, here is a thoughtful article from the Reformed Church in America. (Note: I liked the article but don’t know much about the website as a whole, but they seem a bit social justic-y to me “make the world a better place”, and they use the word ‘broken’.)
This article lists some thoughtful things about how we approach music in worship.
Here are just a few quotes from the article, which again, I enjoyed. It outlines some facts about music in worship and then outlines a framework to think about when selecting music.
The church’s ministry of song is for the edification of God’s people
The church’s ministry of song is for the glory of God
It is also important that the emotional power of music in worship be evocative rather than manipulative, honest rather than manufactured, and that the congregation’s singing allow for the full range of emotions in worship.
Does our congregational singng include the many moods and types of prayer, including praise, thanksgiving, confession, lament, intercession, and dedication? A congregation which sings only “upbeat” praise choruses and hymns, for example, will have a diminished and restricted understanding of prayer.
I pray that you enjoy the thoughts here, the article at thelink, and most of all, music in worship.
Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. (Proverbs 1:8-9).
Q.
I would like your opinion on the Christian’s responsibility regarding voting.
A.
I’m not a good person to ask. I am very conflicted over my own behavior in this issue.
I used to be intensely involved in politics, being a reporter/editor of a weekly newspaper and covering all the politics there was. I had and still hold a firm belief that the US is the best country to live in, and that an aware and involved citizenry is what’s best for America. However, I ingested a little too much of local politics back then covering it for the paper, and now I have a healthy distaste for all politics! The level of greed & corruption disgusts me, and the news media’s current hatred toward all conservatives doesn’t help. It’s a minefield trying to educate myself on the local referenda or the national issues because of all the blatant fake news.
I do vote for President and usually Senator/Representative. But that is about it. I don’t do a lot of research into local ordinances, zoning, or ballots any more because it all still turns my stomach.
I also believe what John MacArthur preached as the Christian’s responsibility toward government involvement. Here is the opening of his part 3 sermon on the topic, and of course he went on with scripture and biblical examples.
My point is not that Christians should remain totally uninvolved in politics or civic activities and causes. They ought to express their political beliefs in the voting booth, and it is appropriate to support legitimate measures designed to correct a glaring social or political wrong. Complete noninvolvement would be contrary to what God’s Word says about doing good in society: “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10; cf. Titus 3:1-2).
It would also display a lack of gratitude for whatever amount of religious freedom the government allows us to enjoy. Furthermore, such pious apathy toward government and politics would reveal a lack of appreciation for the many appropriate legal remedies believers in democracies have for maintaining or improving the civil order.
A certain amount of healthy and balanced concern with current trends in government and the community is acceptable, as long as we realize that that interest is not vital to our spiritual growth, our righteous testimony, or the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. Above all, the believer’s political involvement should never displace the priority of preaching and teaching the gospel.
I am always trying to find that balance between what Dr MacArthur Mac phrased as “pious apathy” and the Bible’s concept of “responsible involvement.” I don’t think I’ve hit it. And I always hold my nose whichever course I take. So those are my thoughts! What are your thoughts?
the-end-time.org 