“Really” Saved

Posted on 11/11/2011 by Paul Pavao

All of us have run across people who say they are saved but are not. In fact, for most "Christians," the teachings of Christ and the apostles play little to no role in their lives. Polls by George Barna confirm this regularly, from the mouths of church attenders themselves.

So those of us who are serious about the Gospel have looked for ways to see people really saved. We’ve told those who pray the sinner’s prayer to really mean it. We’ve emphasized follow-up. We’ve made our doctrines better. We’ve increased church activities, and we’ve even tried getting a little more worldly ourselves so that these Christians in name only might get a little more committed.

All to no avail.

I was reading a Christian drug rehab site today, and I realized that one problem is that nominal Christians don’t see that there is anything they need to be really saved from.

At a drug rehab center, there’s something to be saved from. You’ve either stopped brewing meth, or you’re still using it. You’ve either stopped smoking crack, or you’re still smoking crack.

If the drug rehab’s "Gospel" isn’t working, there’s no denying it isn’t working. We don’t usually use the word "saved" in reference to their work, but at a Christian rehab center, that’s exactly what’s going on. Either they’re being saved, or they’re not.

Since I don’t know all the details of what a drug rehab center does, nor how successful they are, nor how much follow-up they do, let’s switch to something I know more about.

U.S. prisons have very high "recidivism" rates. A recidivism rate is the percentage of criminals released from prison who wind up behind bars again. Standard statistics vary depending on how they’re calculated, but a 45% recidivism rate after three years is acknowledged by all. A Free Republic article says that if you track all prisoners for 20 years, then it’s 82% of inmates who return to prison.

The article describes a program that successfully reduced that recidivism rate to 61%, a minor but significant success. It involved counseling.

I have now met two men involved in major prisoner reform programs. Both programs take a prisoner from the prison to a counseling program, help them find a job, and follow up with them for at least two years. Both programs successfully cut the recidivism rate in half.

Now that’s salvation! It is at least for the men who never return to prison.

We have no such standard of measure for Christianity today. Anyone who can attend a meeting can be a Christian.

It was not that way in the beginning. To join the Christians was to join a new family. They shared their meals and even their possessions. They met every day in the temple, and they ate together in their homes. Their leaders taught them "night and day, both publicly and from house to house."

The "every day in the temple" part happened only in Jerusalem, but the rest happened everywhere for around 200 years.

An early Christian tract is still extant that made it into two early Christian writings, one the earliest church manual ever written. That tract urges Christians to "seek out the faces of the saints ever day." It tells them that if they share in eternal things, how much more should they share the things that are merely temporary.

As late as A.D. 200, we read about the Christians that "the family possessions, which generally destroy brotherhood among you [Romans], create brotherly bonds among us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us except our wives" (Tertullian, Apology 39).

A counselor who takes an inmate fresh from prison and guides him to a new life can tell you whether that inmate was successfully "saved." If the inmate went back to prison, the counselor knows that, at least for now, he’s failed. If the inmate is surrounded by wholesome friends, employed, and has a new life in front of him, then he’s succeeded.

When Christianity is again a family, rather than a set of weekly meetings; when we are again seeking out the faces of the saints every day; when our teachers are again teaching day and night and from house to house as well as publicly; when each saint is expected to stretch out his hand to give as well as stretching it out to take … when these things are happening, we may again be able to tell the difference between the saved and those who merely attend our meetings.

That would require a pretty radical overhaul, but don’t you agree we need it?

One happy note: I have run across a number of churches attempting to make exactly those kind of changes. Some are failing, but some appear to be succeeding.

If you’re in Sacramento or Atlanta, I can already put you in contact with people. Unfortunately, I didn’t get contact information from the elder of one church like this I met, but there are a couple others in the middle of these changes that I know about, too.

David Platt has a rather famous church doing these sorts of things in Birmingham, and if you’re in San Francisco, you ought to look up what Francis Chan is doing. Simple and brilliant.

Posted in Church, Gospel, Miscellaneous, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Innocence vs. Purity Revisited

Posted on 11/03/2011 by Paul Pavao

Apparently, this post is not Innocence vs. Purity "Revisited." I thought I’d already written a post on innocence vs. purity, but apparently I haven’t. A great oversight on my part!

Today, a man I respect and like posted a very interesting post on Facebook, but it implied that God was not at fault for the defect of sin in us. (Which is an immense defect, see Rom. 7.) Perhaps there is some accuracy to that, but to be honest I have to say I don’t agree. The God who can create the universe and foresee all things could not have been ignorant of what would happen if he created man in the manner he did.

I want to argue that the fall of man was a good thing.

God’s plan was never innocence; it was incorruptible purity, and that required the loss of innocence. He always intended to sum all things up in Christ, to make us the sons of God in a more real way than Adam was, and to wind up with new creations that are incorruptible.

In the other post that I thought I wrote, but didn’t, I wanted to say that we should be the same way with our own children. Protecting their innocence is not the goal, though admittedly that innocence should be guarded for a time. Preparing them to meet temptation so that they will preserve their purity, that is the goal.

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The New World Order and Government Conspiracies

Posted on 11/02/2011 by Paul Pavao

What about conspiracy theories and the new world order?

I’ve heard many conspiracy theories about a new world order. There is no doubt that we are locked in a battle with satan and his agents, but it doesn’t appear to me that we are to fight him by trying to figure out how governments and rulers will arrange themselves. We fight him by staying close to God, living in righteousness, and praying. In due time, God will order things according to his will. Until then, he has given us much instruction on what we should do, which includes obeying governments, paying taxes, and praying for our leaders so that we may live godly and holy lives in peace and quietness.

To me, the easiest way to sort through difficult teachings is to jump to the end and find out what those teachings ask us to do. If they ask us to do what the Gospel and our Master ask us to do, then let us look deeper. If they ask us to do other things that are mere distractions, like researching government activities, then we must reject them and be about our Master’s business.

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What Is Christianity?

Posted on 10/31/2011 by Paul Pavao

I got carried away and wrote a long email to a young man who wrote me. It covers evolution, church history, the apostles, the Word of God, the Scriptures, the Gospel, and what is central to Christianity.

I hate to see it simply languish in my sent folder, so here goes:

All Bible quotes in this post are from the NASB.

You wrote:>>Either you believe everything in the Bible is the inspired Word of God, being completely true, and that it is the standard for which Christians should live their lives, or you don’t.<<

To me you just made two statements, not one. The first, if I'm understanding your meaning correctly, is that the Bible is completely accurate historically and scientifically. That's a bit more narrow of a definition than "completely true."

Is the Bible “Completely True”?

There is no denying that I don’t believe the Bible is completely accurate historically or scientifically. I don’t believe the world is set on pillars (1 Sam. 2:8). I don’t believe that the sky is as hard as a metal mirror (Job 37:18). I believe that the earth moves, even though Psalm 93:1 says it doesn’t.

Of course, everyone–including you, your pastor, and everyone else you know–agrees with me on the three things I just listed. Oh, they have their excuses as to why that’s different than doubting the exact scientific accuracy of Genesis 1, but it all looks the same to me.

Do we really believe that God made plants before there was a sun? Do we really believe that there is a tree that if you eat from it, you’ll have eternal life whether God wants you to have it or not? That’s certainly what the story of the Garden of Eden suggests. God had to ban Adam … No, let’s not call him Adam. His name is Man. The Hebrew word Adam is used over 500 times in the Old Testament, and it is only translated Adam in the first few chapters of Genesis.

So, God had to ban Man and Life (Life was the name of Man’s wife) from the garden because if he didn’t, then Man would eat from the tree of life and live forever; apparently even if God didn’t want him to live forever!

Maybe that was meant to be an accurate description of the very first days of mankind, but I don’t believe that. And everyone I’ve read on the subject of how the Hebrews told stories agrees with me. To the Hebrews, “true” was not a matter of historically accurate. “True” had to do with whether it communicated truth.

I believe that the story of Man and Life not only communicates truth, but it communicates God’s truth. It’s not just a saying or a bit of human wisdom. It’s a message from God.

In that sense, I do believe that the Scriptures are completely true.

Is “scientifically and historically accurate” the correct definition of true? Well, that’s for you to decide, but I believe that is a modern, western definition that doesn’t apply very well to the Hebrew Scriptures. It was certainly not their mindset, according to every Hebrew scholar I’ve read.

Is the Bible our Standard

The other part of your statement was whether the Bible is “the standard for which Christians should live their lives.”

First, let me say that I definitely believe that the Bible is the standard for which Christians should test, though not necessarily live, their lives. If our lives disagree with the Scriptures, then we are in error. With that I completely agree, but the Scriptures teach us that we are to be led by the Spirit, not led by the Scriptures. The Scriptures can provide guidance, but we are to walk in the Spirit.

Today, we think the Bible is the center of the Christian faith.

I’m pretty certain that the apostles thought that Jesus Christ is the center of the Christian faith. I think they believed that the ultimate testimony of Christianity was that the Gospel they received from Jesus was “the power of God to salvation,” and that those who believed the Gospel received a real and powerful justification, becoming new creations.

Paul describes that concerning the Thessalonians:

“You became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything” (1 Thess. 1:7-8).

The Scriptures talk about the Word of God growing three different times in Acts (6:7; 12:24; 19:20). We tend to equate the Scriptures and the Word of God, but the apostles didn’t. They believed the Word of God is either Jesus or the entire message of God, in whatever form it came. One major form is that the Word of God lives in us, planted like a seed. It can grow because as the number of disciples multiply, the Word of God grows.

We can say that the Scriptures are the standard by which we must live our lives, but could the apostles’ churches say that? I’ve read all the writings of the second century church, and I can tell you–along with the agreement of pretty much every Christian scholar you want to check–that the New Testament writings were not gathered together until about a hundred years after Jesus died.

And do you know how they gathered the New Testament writings?

They were not gathering “inspired” writings. They were not gathering “New Testament” writings. They were gathering the writings of apostles and men who accompanied the apostles. They wanted all and any they could find.

It was the apostles who were inspired, not just their writings. (For example, see 2 Thess. 2:15 and verses like 1 Cor. 11:2 and 14:37.) The New Covenant has never been about a book. It has been about God pouring out his Spirit on all flesh, bringing them into the church, and making of them a family that would glorify his name by their love for God, their love for each other, and their disdain for the things of the world.

Boxing up God, the Scriptures, and the Gospel

I’m so sorry, dear reader, that writing like this is so limited. Today we’ve boxed everything up and made everything nice and tidy.

God’s never been that way. He’s always left questions and things we don’t understand. He doesn’t care about our fitting his grand plan into our limited human minds. He cares about our trust and obedience. He wants us to know him, for eternal life is to know him, not to pass a test on his plan of salvation (Jn. 17:3).

The Original Faith

My goal is not to convince you of things, but to let you look at the faith that’s been handed to us. The original faith consisted of a firm trust that God sent Jesus, Jesus sent the apostles, and the apostles raised up churches to preserve the truth. Those churches all had a basic “rule of faith” to keep them on the straight and narrow. The Apostles Creed is a 4th century “rule of faith.”

When you read the writings of the 2nd century church, it’s such a glorious thing to see the purity of original Christianity. They held firm to the foundation that “The Lord knows those who are his, and let those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19). They demanded that Christians accept the basic truths, the sort of things outlined in the Nicene Creed, but after that, “sound doctrine” was much more like what is described in Titus 2 than the sort of things we argue about today.

They honored those who lived holy lives. In fact, one early Christian said, “We don’t speak great things; we live them.”

When they defended Christianity, they spoke of the divinity of Christ’s teachings and how the Spirit of God empowered them to be delivered from greed and lust and to live lives of good conscience. Further, they stood gallantly during persecution, arguing that the bravery of the martyrs was proof of the power of the Spirit of God in the lives of Christians.

Misusing the Scriptures

I love the Scriptures. I hope, as you can see, that I study them thoroughly. I pattern my life after them, and I quote them in defense of all I say. If what I say can’t be found in the Scriptures, then what I say can be rightly rejected.

But we’ve done something awful with the Scriptures in the modern era. As I read today in a George MacDonald book, there are too many people who are “more desirous of understanding what they are supposed to understand than of doing what they are supposed to do.”

We argue and fight over doubtful matters. We make our determinations of what is true based on our intellectual interpretations of Scripture, when in fact Jesus (in Scripture) taught us to judge our teachers by their fruit and not by their confident interpretations (Matt. 7).

The Doctrine According to Godliness

We need to relearn the “doctrine according to godliness” as mentioned by Paul in 1 Tim. 6:3. Because our doctrine is according to intellect and argument, rather than according to godliness, we are what Paul describes in 1 Tim. 6:4-5:

He has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved minds and deprived of the truth.

Let us set ourselves to obeying Jesus Christ and honoring him by our lives.

Evolution and Doubtful Disputes

I have a web site on evolution. That is not because I think that Christians need to take a position on evolution, nor because I want anyone at all to agree it’s true. What I want is that men who have boxed up the Word of God and wrapped a book cover around him do not splinter the church of God into fighting factions over doubtful subjects.

The mark of a Christian is not that he agrees that Genesis one is literal … nor that it’s not literal. The mark of a Christian is that by the power of the Spirit of God he obeys Jesus Christ, living a life marked by the love of God.

We have enough work achieving that goal, but modern Christians have forgotten that it is a goal. They have become confused into thinking that Christianity is a mere understanding of and assent to the atonement.

Salvation is not a plan; it’s a Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Posted in Bible, Church, Evolution and Creation, Gospel, History, Holiness, Modern Doctrines, Unity | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Revelation and Repentance

Posted on 10/29/2011 by Paul Pavao

This is another post that I need to hear.

With gentleness [correct] those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been help captive by him to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:25-26, NASB)

Repentance, according to this passage, requires revelation. God has to grant our opponents repentance that will lead to the knowledge of the truth.

This should be liberating for us. We do not have to make our arguments strong enough to convince the hard-hearted and foolish. We only have to make our arguments well enough, and with gentleness, to please God. God will take it from there.

Any of you who have ever had a word from God lodge in your heart knows how unshakeable the conviction of the Lord is. That word will pierce like a thorn until you either give in or make a conscious choice to turn your back on God and choose evil.

One final note. This is not the only place that says repentance must be given by God:

They quieted down and glorified God, saying, "Well, then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that that leads to life." (Acts 11:18b, NASB)

 

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The Foolishness of the Message Preached

Posted on 10/28/2011 by Paul Pavao

“It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”

For those of us who fancy ourselves apologists, it can be difficult to rest in the foolishness of the message preached. We want to be able to explain the reasonableness of the Gospel, and we hope to make the path to faith easier and the response of God more sure by our guidance.

It is true that the Gospel is a confrontation and an ultimatum, whether we like it or not. We cannot help God respond nor make the Gospel more palatable. Either what we preach is true and God will back it up with supernatural power or we need to find something different to preach. The true Gospel is powerful whether we can explain it or not. When it seems foolish to men that Christ died for sins, then God is all the more pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached.

Let us beware lest in our human wisdom and desire to “help” God that we become guilty of preaching a palatable but false Gospel that God must oppose.

“I will bring the wisdom of the wise to nothing.”

Posted from my iPhone

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Division and Heresy

Posted on 10/20/2011 by Paul Pavao

In the last post I discussed baptism in Jesus’ name. I mentioned that those who deny the Trinity are the ones who normally bring this up.

Their belief is that God is only one person. To them, Jesus is the Father, is the Son, and is the Holy Spirit. God is "the Father in creation, the Son in redemption, and the Holy Ghost in the church."

This doctrine—which has been called modalism, Sabellianism, and "Jesus only"—is one of the oldest heresies. Sabellius and Praxeas were excommunicated for holding the doctrine in the early third century, just 150 years after the time of the apostles.

Even more interestingly, Tertullian, writing about the same time that Sabellius and Praxeas were excommunicated, explains that the majority of Christians held to some version of "Jesus only" because they were too simple and uneducated to grasp the concept of "the Trinity in Unity."

The question I want to put before us today is whether we ought to excommunicate modern Sabellians. Should we avoid fellowship with the "Jesus only" churches today?

My answer to that question is yes, but I want to qualify that answer.

Of course we have to reject them. That is the historical position of the church. It is clear that the teaching of the Trinity is what the apostles handed down to the church, and the church really cannot have rebellious members teaching things that are certainly contrary to apostolic teaching.

In this case, I’m referring not only to apostolic teaching, but to a teaching that the apostles considered important.

For us there is but one God, the Father … and one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (1 Cor. 8:6)

That verse can be a bit of a struggle for modern Trinitarians, who don’t hold to exactly the apostolic doctrine of the Trinity, either; however, 1 Cor. 8:6 definitely flies in the face of modalist teaching. (I have a book on the subject.)

It is not just scripturally, but historically, that it is obvious that the modalists contradict apostolic teaching. The very basis of every early church creed was the Trinity!

What About Godly "Jesus Only" Believers I’ve Met?

I’ve met my share of godly modalists. I’ve met my share of hard-nosed, judgmental, critical modalists, too, but it’s not those I’m concerned about. It’s the godly ones, who actually seem to be marked with love that I’m concerned about.

"Everyone that loves is born of God," says the apostle.

Is that true?

I certainly believe that’s true, just as I believe all theological teaching that comes from an apostle. I assume that most of my readers agree because it’s in the Bible (1 Jn. 4:7).

So what about a modalist who by John’s definition is born of God?

My answer is that we attach too much to being born of God.

Being born of God is apart from works. Being born of God means that you have received the Spirit and grace of God so that you are able to obey and follow God. You must still "sow to the Spirit" and "not grow weary in doing good" if you want to reap eternal life (Gal. 6:7-10). I know that’s unthinkable heresy to a lot of people, but that’s the simple Gospel of the early church, and it’s easily justifiable to anyone who is familiar with Scripture.

We cannot ignore Scripture just because a person is born of God. We are supposed to mark those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine we have learned. In the modern era, we take that way too far, but we are not taking it too far when we forbid a Christian to teach modalism, a doctrine which has been condemned by the church since it reared its head in rebellion to the apostles’ appointed successors and to their churches 1800 years ago.

Such a person may find mercy at the judgment seat of Christ. A modalist walking in love, as far as I can tell, may well find himself among the sheep who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the sick and imprisoned. We are not given indication in the Scriptures that people will be judged for misunderstanding the Trinity. We are given indication that they will be judged for ignoring the needy (Matt. 25:31-46).

Nonetheless, we are told to reject heretics after the first or second admonition (Tit. 3:10). Today, that word "heretics" might best be translated as "forcefully opinionated men causing divisions." The fact that they might go to heaven does not give them the freedom to trouble the saints and divide the church.

I’d be curious for any feedback, especially scriptural feedback, that you might have for me on this.

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Baptism in Jesus Name

Posted on 10/18/2011 by Paul Pavao

Let’s add a new dimension to this blog, and let me begin by asking you for a moment’s prayer. Together, we might be able to change a life in our spare moments doing things like this.

Today, I’d like to ask you to pray for Sue. I met Sue at the hospital, and she’s been consistently sending me little emails of encouragement as I’ve been going through my treatment for leukemia. In the meantime, Sue’s leukemia is in remission. It’s been about a year and a half. If she makes it to the two-year mark she’ll be considered cured, but we want to pray that she’s cured way past the two-year mark and that her life continues to make an impact in the life of others.

Thank you!

Baptism in Jesus Name

Okay, today’s post is from an email I wrote to a friend who’s a missionary. He’s doing great work for Christ (you can pray for him, too: Jason Fitzpatrick in Mexico), but occasionally I get to help him with some detail of history or theology. I’m very honored when I get to do that, as I don’t really feel worthy to be advising people who are doing the kinds of things Jason is doing.

Anyway, he asked about why baptism is always said to be in Jesus’ name in the Bible except that one time in Matthew 28:19.

I know Jason, and he’s a practical and insightful man. So I addressed what the real issue is, which is what do we do when we baptize. This also touches a little on the Trinity because most people who object to baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit object to the whole concept of the Trinity.

So, here it is:

*****************

Personally, I think we’re missing the point.

In the name does not mean that we’re saying his name while we are baptizing. In the name means that we are doing it by his authority or on his behalf. If we are sent out in a King’s name, it doesn’t mean that every time we do something we say, "In the name of the king I post this poster on a tree for the 375th time."

No, if someone asks us why we’re doing it, we say, "We’re doing it in the name of the king, who ordered us to do it."

So we can say, "I baptize you in the name of Jesus," and that can be baptizing in his name … IF YOU’RE SENT BY HIM TO BAPTIZE. However, if you’re sent by him to baptize, you can also say, "Welcome to the church," and it would still be in Jesus’ name. What you say doesn’t matter. Whether he sent you to baptize matters.

Thus, there is no difference between baptizing in Jesus’ name and baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for their authority is one and the same.

Getting hung up on technicalities, in my opinion, is the work of the devil to create division among Christians. It’s okay to study such things. I have studied such things, and I recommend that others who are called to teach do the same. However, we who act in the name of Jesus must remember the heart of the one who sends us. Is he hung up on the words we pronounce? If so, then we should be, too. If he is not hung up on the exact name we pronounce, but we are, then we can say "in the name of Jesus," but we are not acting in his name; we are acting on our own.

Posted in Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

What Are We Holding Onto?

Posted on 10/08/2011 by Paul Pavao

I’m still filing away old emails from after transferring from a PC to a Mac and from the Mozilla Thunderbird email program to Mac’s "Mail."

In the process, I ran across a June 9 email from Christianity Today that focused solely on evolution, and more specifically on the historicity of Adam and Eve. That newsletter sent me to this article, titled "The Search for the Historical Adam."

The issue I want to discuss today is not whether Adam was a historical figure, though I imagine most of you know I consider the garden story an obvious allegory, even less likely to be an actual historical story than "The Prodigal Son" or "The Good Samaritan" because those don’t involve talking snakes and trees that can make you live forever (even if God doesn’t want you to!).

What I want to discuss is where we’re going to stand if we come to agreement, as I’m sure we will eventually will, that man evolved. In the 1600’s, we came to agreement that the earth moves around the sun against the literalist (and Lutheran and Calvinist) interpretation of Psalm 93:1. Eventually, and probably soon, denying evolution is going to look so foolish that Christians in general will no longer take that stand.

Sorry for the term "foolish," but it is the concern about looking foolish, not truth or evidence, that is going to turn the evolution deniers. We might as well be honest about our human nature. You can forcefully overcome it and pursue objective truth, but the huge majority of us don’t.

Anyway, an evangelicalism "expert" (an expert on evangelicalism???) at a policy center in Washington "call[ed] the new thinking the new thinking an ‘urgent’ and ‘potentially paradigm-shifting’ development with ‘huge theological implications.’"

It does have huge theological implications, but they are implications we are going to face whether we like it or not. As Francis Collins and Karl Giberson put it, "unfortunately" the concepts of Adam and Eve as the literal first couple and ancestors of all humans simply "do not fit the evidence" (The Language of Science and Faith as cited by the referenced and linked Christianity Today article).

So What Are Those Implications?

If we have to admit that Adam and Eve were not literal people and that the Garden story is the allegory that it seems to be, then where do we stand? What do we have left?

What I’m afraid of is that most Christians have nothing more than a religion they’ve been talked into with a book that they honor for reasons they do not understand. Those Christians will be left with nothing at all. For them, Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, is correct. Their whole religion will crumble.

I used the word "honor" in the preceding paragraph advisedly. I do not agree that such Christians believe the Bible. They only reverence it. Try sometime to get two "Bible-believing" Christians to agree on what the Bible says about some point of difference. It doesn’t take much effort to see that neither cares what the Bible actually says; they care only about what their particular tradition has taught them.

Today, most traditions which include people who reject evolution have taught their adherents to reverence the Bible in a way that borders on worship. They have also taught their followers to equate their traditions with accurate Bible interpretation. Anyone who disagrees with them is wrong by definition and is thus at least somewhat separated from God.

Embracing evolution for Christians from those traditions looks like leaving the faith. They have to face the following horrifying consequences, all of which violate their tradition, and each of which represents one step away from following God.

  • There was death before Adam
  • Our sin nature is not the consequence of the fall but the natural consequence of evolution
  • The Bible is not historically literal throughout
  • The Bible is errant when it comes to science

There are probably others, but we don’t need to mention them because these are enough to ensure ostracization from their denomination or tradition.

Finally, one of the worse fears these Christians have is that the only alternative to their strict literalism is a liberal Christianity that embraces homosexual pastors and exchanges holiness for social programs that are not even personal but run by governments and large organizations.

A Purely Intellectual Christianity

I want to point out here that all four of those bullet points above are nothing but statements that can be written down in a doctrinal statement. Not a single one of them is an action, nor can any of them be transformed into an action at all.

I assert that the majority of evangelical Christianity is primarily an intellectual theory. Yes, many Christians live a life that is "holy" by New Testament standards that evangelical Christians agree on: no sex outside of marriage, respect for others, kindness, regular prayer, etc.

However, this is not primary to evangelical Christianity because evangelical Christianity has a powerful emphasis on Paul’s phrase, "not of works." Living a life of obedience to the teachings of Christ has to take a back seat to acknowledging all the purely intellectual assertions of the evangelical traditions.

And those purely intellectual assertions are threatened by evolution.

Evolution and a Practical, Spiritual Christianity

I’m not afraid to see those intellectual assertions crash. They don’t belong to apostolic Christianity anyway.

Sometimes I wonder how the Bible could say things so clearly, yet so many of us miss it. Of course, I know the answer to that. Most Christians are not Bible believers; they are holders of tradition.

For example, Paul says very clear what is at the foundation of Christianity in 2 Timothy 2:19:

God’s foundation stands firm, and inscribed on it is this:
The Lord knows those who are his
And let him who names the name of Christ withdraw from unrighteousness

Now there is action, and it was primary to Paul. In fact, he said it is what is inscribed on God’s foundation, rather than all those “I believe’s” that are inscribed on denominational foundations.

I don’t know how many times evangelicals have responded to this with, "Well, Paul said sound doctrine is important."

This is sound doctrine!!

There’s only one passage that specifically defines sound doctrine. It’s the entire chapter of Titus 2. Go read it. There isn’t anything remotely similar to "no death before Adam."

In fact, it ends by saying that Jesus died "to purify a unique people for himself, zealous for good works."

Right before that, it tells us that the purpose of grace is not to convince us that we can go to heaven no matter how we live but to teach us to "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age."

In Romans 6:14—so that we can move out of the so-called "pastoral epistles" into the so-called "faith epistles"—Paul tells us that grace is what breaks sin’s power over us, so that we can stop being slaves of sin. There again, in Romans 8:3-4, Paul tells us that is the reason Jesus died. He says something similar in Romans 14:9, telling us that Jesus died so that he could be Lord of both the living and the dead.

This sort of theology, which as you can see I’m merely quoting from the Bible, is not intellectual. It is powerful, difficult, and puts us in a daily struggle against sin which Jesus’ death has empowered us to win.

Paul describes that struggle in Galatians 5:16-18 and again in Galatians 6:7-9. It is described very similarly in Romans 8:5-14, but my favorite description is in 2 Peter 1:3-11.

What is Christianity? It is the death of Christ to deliver us from the power of sin so that our lives can be so utterly transformed that we can be described as "born again" and "a new creation." It is the resurrection of Christ who lives in us by the Spirit of God so that our lives are noticeably divine.

That Christianity is not threatened by evolution. Who cares whether Adam evolved when we are no longer sons of Adam but sons of God? (I love the fact that 1 Corinthians 15 calls Jesus the second man, but the last Adam. He is the last Adam, whose death and resurrection creates a new race of men, the children of God.)

Since I have put myself in conflict with a proclamation from strict literalists—by whom I mean people who strictly believe that their interpretations are accurate no matter how much they don’t match the Bible—I want to make an appeal to Jesus’ standard for conflict resolution when it comes to the proclamation of his teachings:

Beware of the false prophets … you shall know them by their fruits. (Matt. 7:15-16)

You decide what message produces truly good fruit.

Posted in Bible, Evolution and Creation, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Communist Goals and How They’ve Succeeded

Posted on 09/26/2011 by Paul Pavao

I don’t normally write about politics, but this post is going to sound like I’m a sap for conspiracy theories. The fact is, I write off most things that even sound like a conspiracy theory, because conspiracy theorists have proven to be universally untrustworthy in my experience.

I’m just going to tell you what I know; do with it what you want. I’m not even a Republican; I voted for Obama, though I’m not a Democrat, either.

Today a friend sent me a video that sounds like a bunch of malarkey. It’s a state congressman who says that he attended a communist meeting in 1992 which outlined goals like promoting women’s lib and homosexuality in order to destroy families. He also said that they talked about promoting environmentalism to destroy businesses, and in this way they hoped to bring America down.

What he says is adjusted somewhat from what I heard in an Air Force briefing during basic training in 1982. My briefing didn’t mention environmentalism, and the emphasis I remember was the promotion of pornography and a general openness to sexual immorality.

I was told that this goal, of eroding America’s morals to destroy her, was written in a communist book. Then the goals were read to us. The video by this state congressman lists some of those very goals at the end.

Pretty much every one of those goals has been successfully met.

I will add one thing. When I was in public school it was taught as obviously true and common knowledge that Rome fell because its citizens became selfish and immoral, and laziness and self-indulgence went with the selfishness and immorality.

I don’t believe that’s taught anymore.

I remember moving to California in 1990 and being shocked by the open scoffing at a selfless life. It was considered naive to share and to help others. "Look out for number one" was the motto.

I had heard "look out for number one" growing up, but it was considered foolish advice, and it was usually said as a joke or a poor attempt to justify behavior that was socially unacceptable.

Not in California. Self-promotion, self-protection, self-indulgence, and turning your head to the needs of the person next to you were considered the appropriate way to live.

I was shocked.

Today, however, no one is shocked at such awful advice. It’s now the American way to live, not just the Californian way to live.

I don’t know if communists have enough power to capitalize on their erosion of America’s values, but they carefully outlined a plan over 50 years ago, and they have completely succeeded. It’s sad that the victims are children. The statistics on the difference between children raised in a home with two parents and children raised with a divorce in their lives are dramatic.

Enough said. Here’s the video:

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments