the undermining of God's Word and the voices of Christ-followers in the American culture

Friday's article in the USAToday entitled, "Who Exactly is a Christian? Obama? You?" is a good example of the constant undermining and sidelining of God's Word and the voices of Christ-followers in the American culture.

Interestingly, the entire premise of this article is based on the belief that people define the term, "Christian" when, in reality, God's Word must define "Christian". As Steven W. Smith puts it so well, God's chain of self revelation to humanity is God revealed in Christ who is revealed in Scripture to us. If you want to know what God is like, get to know Jesus--He and the Father are one; Jesus is the exact representation of God. If you want to know what Jesus is like, get to know the Scriptures--God's Word reveals Jesus Christ to us. So, if you want to know what it means to be a "Christian", to be "of Christ", then God's Word must provide the definition and description.

But, because this newspaper article assumes people as the ultimate authority on Christianity instead of God's Word, they believe they can change the understanding of Christianity through intimidation by mocking Christ-followers. There are still "pockets of Christians who don't consider Roman Catholics to be Christians" and "one of the longest standing debates...is whether Mormons are Christians". Funny, these never used to be "debates" and they are only debates until one positions the bible as the final authority on all matters. God's Word teaches that salvation is through faith (belief) alone in Christ alone by God's grace alone. That's it. Believing on Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior is the conduit through which God's saving grace enters your life and you become His. There is nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing to give, nothing to get in order to be a Christian. There is only believing on the Lord Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

Therefore, if a religious entity or faith practice teaches salvation through means other than that, they are not telling the Truth, they are false. Any faith practice that says one must be a member of a church to become a Christian--that is false. Any faith practice that says one must be baptized to become a Christian--that is false. Any faith practice that says one must complete a curriculum to become a Christian--that is false. Any faith practice that says one must give a certain amount of money to become a Christian--that is false.

Which brings us to the question of are the Mormon church and the Roman Catholic Church false religions? That question is entirely different from "are Catholics, Christians?" There is the doctrine found in a faith practice's statement of faith (in our case the Baptist Faith and Message) and there is what an individual person has decided on their own. Do I think the Mormon church is a false religion? Yes. The Mormon Church's statements of faith do not teach faith alone in Jesus Christ alone by God's grace alone as the only means of salvation. Do I know of any mormons that are Christians? No. I don't know any mormons who have trusted Jesus Christ (as defined by the bible) as their personal Lord and Savior as their means of salvation. Do I think the Roman Catholic Church is a false religion? Yes, I do. Their statements of faith on the issue of salvation do not teach faith alone in Jesus Christ alone by God's grace alone as the only means of salvation. Do I know any Catholics that are Christians? Yes, I do. Not just a few. I know Catholics who are counting as their only means of salvation, faith alone in Jesus Christ (as defined by the bible) alone.

I realize that to some, my claims are controversial, but I think that is so only as long as we establish people as arbiters of Truth, instead of God's Word alone as the final authority on all matters. When people are established as the standard of Truth, then we make our decisions based on evidences like "but, they are such good people", "they do good things", "they claim to be Christian", or "they pray to Jesus". But, again I say, people are not the standard of Truth; God's Word is the only standard of objective Truth available to us. How does God's Word define the means of salvation? The answer to that question is the final authority on who and who isn't "of Christ".

I don't say these things to be mean or ugly. Nor do I think my belief in God's Word as the final authority is unloving. Which is more unloving? 1. People knowing there is a heaven and a hell and yet not being able to clearly articulate how one ends up in each place. 2. People knowing there is a heaven and hell and knowing with great clarity how to end up in each place. It may initially sound unloving to say some folks are currently on the road to heaven and some aren't; however, the loving thing to do is help people who aren't on the path to heaven know they aren't while they have time to do something about it. The Good News is only Good News if it gets to people in time! I would hate for you to stand in front of Christ one day believing you are a "Christian" (of Christ) only to be told "get away from Me, I never knew you." However, if I can help you understand with great clarity how you can know for sure you are going to heaven, even if the clarity at first hurts you or makes you uncomfortable, I've actually loved you.

I simply say them in response to the USAToday article. Can we know who is a "Christian"? Yes, we can! Can we know if President Obama is a Christian? Yes, we can! Can I know if I am a Christian? Yes, we can! Can we know if any of us are Christians? Yes, we can! (Ok, I'll stop with the "Yes, we can!"s; I just thought it was fitting since the article mentioned the current president.) Here is the question: Does the president confess Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior--if so, President Obama is my brother-in-Christ; if he doesn't confess Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he is not my brother-in-Christ.

But, better yet, do you confess the Jesus Christ of the bible as the Lord and Savior of your life? If the answer is yes, then you are a Christian. If the answer is no, then you are not "of Christ" and I would urge you to become "of Christ" right now. If you really want to become a Christ-follower, you can simply just tell Him right now, "Lord Jesus, I choose you as the Lord and Savior of my life."

SWBTS iPhone App

For all you iPhoners, Southwestern Seminary now has an app for you. There are great videos, sermons, workshops, etc, all related to preaching and teaching the Word of God.

God's Idea of a Woman

Nicole has a great post over on her blog about God's definition of a woman. With the notion of coming to Scripture for direction and not permission, I highly recommend this post as a study of what God says a woman is like. These ten life commitments would make a great series for a lady's quiet time--take one a day, search the Scriptures re: that day's commitment, and journal what you find.

watch this video

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

The Bible--Permission or Direction?

Over the past few months, this question has been on the forefront of my mind and there is a big difference between the two. If the bible merely exists for permission purposes, then it is left to man to define and plan family, life, church, and Kingdom ministries on his own and then come to the bible to see if the bible permits such a definition or plan. However, if the bible exists for direction purposes, then the bible defines and plans family, life, church, and Kingdom ministries and man's job is to go to the bible to find definitions, plans, and methodologies and execute them. The former is pragmatic driven Christianity, the latter is theologically driven. I fall into the latter camp. The former always ends up man centered and the latter Christ centered. The former cannot be sustained because man can't sustain anything good on his own, but the latter is sustainable because it is out of the Word of God and the Word of God will never fade away. In my lifetime, pragmatism has given the church world the seeker sensitive movement among churches and now the emerging churches. Like the former, the latter is destined to fade away.

My camp often gets a bad wrap. Do I want methodology that works? Yes. But do I want the methodology for family, church, and life to be written by God? Yes! Do I support contextualization? Absolutely, but only to the point that it does not compromise in any way the Word of God.

My fear is that the majority of the evangelical world has fully embraced pragmatism and the bible has become merely the final gate to run before take off instead of the well spring of life.

I pray for more Christians, pastors, and church planters who will go to the bible for direction and not merely permission.

The Importance of Motherhood

Our culture has reduced motherhood to a sideshow; a responsibility that is secondary to a career and money. The bible calls for a mother's identity to be found first and foremost in being a child of God and then also in her role as mother. Contrary to the feminist movement that has become a powerful voice in our culture, motherhood is not a lesser responsibility, it is the highest calling of God known to mankind. Anyone can be an accountant at your firm, a sales person at your company, a teacher at your school, or a soldier in your unit, but there is only one person who can be mother to the particular children Jesus has given you. Hear me on this: I do not believe it's wrong for a mother to work outside the home. But, I do believe it's wrong when a mother values other pursuits more than her children. Mom, it is always the right decision when you choose your children over more money, more accolades, more corporate accomplishments. You will never regret putting as much time in with your children as you possibly can. Spending two decades developing and discipling specific members of the next generation of Christ followers is the greatest achievement you can ever know!

Here's a brief word from Nicole on motherhood.

A Call For Husbands/Fathers To Be Present In Their Home

Nicole wrote this post on her blog while I was out of town this week at a preaching engagement.

When I read it from a "husband" angle, the post was a huge encouragement to me.

When I read it from a "pastoral" angle, I was reminded of the deep importance of husbands/fathers being in the life of their family. We as husbands and fathers play a vital role in Christ's plan for the home--whether we like it or not. Gender roles in the home matter because God has given the mother's presence in the home a certain meaning and the father's presence in the home an entirely different meaning. Not only are both wife/mother and husband/father required in God's plan for the home, but neither can play the role of the other. When the father is absent, the home cannot be what the Lord intended for it to be.

Men, I direct to you to Nicole's post to hear a woman verbalize the importance of your role in the family.

Silence

A pastor whose writings I enjoy is Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC. Yesterday, he wrote this thought provoking article:

Making Silence Together
by mdever

One of the most frequently commented upon aspects of the morning Lord's Day service here at Capitol Hill Baptist Church is nothing we do. Or rather, it is the nothing we do. It is our moments of silence.

There's silence between various aspects of the service. I encourage service leaders to NOT do the "no-dead-airspace" TV standard of busy-ness. We LIKE "dead air space." "Dead air space" gives us time to reflect. To collect our thoughts. To consider what we've just heard or read or sung. The silence amplifies the words or music we've just heard. It allows us time to take it all in, and to pray. We have silence to prepare ourselves. We have silence between the announcements and the scriptural call to worship. We even have a moment of silence AFTER the service! I pronounce the benediction from the end of II Corinthians, invite the congregation to be seated. And then, after about a minute of silence, the pianist begins quietly playing the last hymn that we had just sung. During those few moments, we reflect and prepare to speak to others and depart. We do business with God. We prepare ourselves for the week ahead.

I'm a sound addict. Even as I write about silence now, I've got Paganini blasting in my study! But yesterday morning in church during one of our silences, I became aware of how corporate a labor such public silence is. Everyone works to be quiet. People stop moving their bulletins or looking for something in their purse. There's no movement. We, together, hear the silence. It engulfs us. It enhances our unity. It is something we all do together. Together we consider what we've just heard. Together we contribute to each other's space to think.

Why has the church forgotten this? Our culture knows it. At the most solemn moments, we have a minute of silence. And everyone listens to the silence. And thinks about why we're being silent. Why don't we do this in the church.

In the last century, E. M. Forster, in A Passage to India, referred to "poor little talkative Christianity". Perhaps there was a day when all Christians did was gather to listen to the Bible read and preached, and to prayers. But that day is long gone in most evangelical churches. These days we gather more to watch than to listen. And to sing.

But in all the noise of our choirs, and drums, and electic guitars, and organs, and praise bands, where is the solemnity? Where is the dignity and majesty that is so often indicated in the Bible by a stupified silence, soaked in awe and covered with wonder?

Ecclesiastes 3:7 tells us that there is a time to speak and a time to be silent, but we seem to have forgotten today that there is a time for silence. God calls his people before Him in silence: "the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him," (Hab. 2:20).

Certainly as Christians we have much to rejoice over--loudly and joyfully and expectantly! But is no part of our regular assemblies to reflect the weightiness of our sinful selves before a holy God, the silence of conviction, even of sorrow? Furthermore, is no part of our regular assemblies to reflect the stunning weightiness of our forgiveness in Christ, the silence of marvel, and even the humility of some incomprehension?

We silence ourselves exactly because God has not kept silent. We silence ourselves in order to hear God speak in His Word (cf. Deut. 27:9) We silence ourselves to show our assent to God's charges against us (cf. Ps. 39:9). We silence ourselves to show respect and obedience and humility and restraint (cf. Zeph. 1:7;
I Cor. 14:34; I Tim. 2:12). We silence ourselves to search our hearts (cf. Ps. 4:4).

We silence ourselves in our own times of prayer, reading and meditation on God's Word. And we should also silence ourselves in our periods of corporate worship. Making silence together builds and unifies the church, witnesses to the majesty of God and tacitly proclaims His greatness to all who hear.

The Fallacy of the Emerging Church

The postmodern mindset of denying objective truth is the end game of an inherent doubt that we can be certain of what truth is. As a result, postmoderns view absolute truth claims as arrogant and unnecessarily devisive.

This mindset plays out in many of our churches today in the form of a hesitancy or in some cases a refusal to engage in the proclamation of absolute truth claims. In other words, the very first ministry where the postmodern mindset affects the church is in the church's proclamation ministry, or as we typically call it, the preaching ministry of the church. When pastors bow to the pressures of postmodernism, absolute truth claims from the pulpit become a rarity. Pastors triage doctrine to reduce the required number of absolute truth claims to a bare minimum. The net result is often that the Great Commission is reduced from two parts to one--from evangelism and "teaching everything I've commanded you", ie: doctrine, to merely evangelism.

The problem with this is that the church exists to proclaim truth--it is fully one half of the Great Commission. God is truth. Therfore the bible, which flowed out of God, is truth. The bible stands on its own as an external, absolute truth. As David Wells puts it in The Courage to be Protestant, "everything we need for instruction, nurture and life in this broken world is contained in Scripture". When a church ceases truth proclamation it is reduced to merely offering friendship and community to the world--the very thing the world can already find in many of its own third places like country clubs, sports leagues, clubs and after work gatherings with colleagues. If churches cease truth proclamation, they are reduced to being merely cleaner venues of what the world already offers.

Truth proclamation is what sets the local church apart from any other entity in this world. Truth proclamation is our power, our distinctiveness and our uniqueness. No other entity in the world has truth proclamation as a mission critical component of their function.

I applaud the emerging church's emphasis on community because a local church by definition is supposed to be a living community; however, faith is not supposed to be cast around community, faith is supposed to be cast through truth proclamation because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. We are to live life in relationship with a local community of believers because we already have faith in Christ, not in order to find faith in Christ.

I believe that in 10-15 years, the emerging church movement's hesitancy to make truth proclamation mission critical to their function will prove to be a great mistake. The emerging movement will be issuing reports not unlike Willowcreek of the seeker sensitive movement from the 80s and 90s. The seeker movement tried to recast faith around the individual and the emerging movement is trying to recast faith around community. Neither strategy will produce disciples because it is a fallacy to believe a church can be built at the exclusion of truth proclamation.

Baptists, We Are Not Catholics

I see in the NY Times that the RCC is going back to offering indulgences.

At the risk of oversimplication, an indulgence is the opportunity to "earn" less punishment for one's sins in the afterlife. For example, via an indulgence, one can spend a few less years in Purgatory before entering Heaven or their punishment from God for a particular sin may be less severe. The RCC used to sell indulgences for money; in other words, one could purchase less punishment for their sin. However, the RCC stopped selling indulgences in the 16th century and only allows church members to "earn" less wages for their sin as the NY Times article demonstrates.

It is impossible to reconcile the notion of indulgences with Scripture. Scripture calls not getting what we deserve, in this case less or no punishment for sin, "grace". Grace by definition cannot be earned and is not deserved, but is rather a free gift of God. I am going to Heaven because of God's grace, not because I've earned it. I don't suffer the full consequences of my sins because of God's grace, not because I've tried to do something good to balance out the evil I've committed. Sin violates the character of God and to think that I have the ability to do something to mend my violation of God either increases my stature and power, diminishes that of God or both. In a nutshell, the very premise of an indulgence is a lessening of the potency and reach of God's grace.

While I applaud the very noble social efforts of the Roman Catholic Church which includes much work to help the poor, feed the hungry, house the homeless and fight abortion and homosexuality, the RCC does not teach salvation by grace through faith alone. The RCC teaches a works based salvation--one must take the sacraments, be baptized and belong to the RCC just to name a few works required for salvation--and thus is not a New Testament church.

I realize those are fighting words in the American church today. I will take a beating from some, even in our church, for this post. But, the offense is only because some have so watered down Truth and redefined christianity that some now hold to a cultural, social gospel and not the gospel of the bible. We now measure love by how we make people feel instead of by the degree of truth we speak and Christian conduct by how well we get along with all people instead of by how strange and peculiar we are. The truth is that we have so changed the faith once delivered to all the saints that many American evangelicals, including Baptists, consider the RCC to be a Christian church that simply practices a few rituals that are unnecessary today.

I want to remind you that the Protestant Reformation, ironically initiated by a RCC priest named Martin Luther who read the New Testament for himself and realized salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, was actually Christ followers separating from the RCC because the RCC teaches a way of salvation contrary to Scripture. I truly believe that if one embraces the RCC's teaching on salvation, one cannot be saved. Christ followers today stand on the shoulders of brothers and sisters in Christ who came before us and stood against the RCC's teaching about salvation and paid for it with their lives.

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the Vatican in Rome, the capital of the RCC world, where I shot this brief video clip: