Evangelism and the Church

Posted on 11/10/2009 by Paul Pavao

This blog started as a comment on one of my other posts, but it kept growing. This post is self-explanatory without seeing the comment I’m responding to, but if you’d like to, it’s on my September 20 post.

The Great Commission

The statement that the great commission was for more than the apostles is made often, in the same way that you just made it … without justification or reference.

It’s simply the doctrine of the Evangelicals. There’s nothing Scriptural about it, though.

As I said, there is nothing in the epistles exhorting the church to evangelism. Nothing at all. The absence is very noticeable when one compares it to modern doctrines.

You add, “the book of Acts evidences what manner of preaching the apostles and the scattered church primarily actively engaged in.” However, there’s nothing in any of those Scriptures about anyone except the apostles preaching. When Acts speaks of the church, it says the church shared their possessions and spent time together and the apostles gave witness to the resurrection.

How Shall They Preach Except …

Stephen and Philip preached, too. Timothy did as well, and Timothy is exhorted to do the work of an evangelist. Remember, to the church, Paul said, “How shall they preach except they be sent?” Some are sent.

We have to stop sending those that God has not sent. Even Paul went nowhere preaching for over a decade before God sent him.

The Word in the Believer

Yes, the scattered believers went everywhere preaching the Word. A believer that has the Word in him cannot help but speak it. The Word is the Word. It is not the Silence. However, the fact is, today we exhort Christians to evangelize, evangelize, evangelize. The Scriptures don’t. It’s really as simple as that.

If Christians were doing what the Scriptures do command, then they’d have something to speak. They would be obedient to the Word, and the Word would grow inside of them. They’d speak automatically. In fact, quite often people would ask them the reason for the hope that is in them, which happens to us quite often.

Fruit

It is the results of the message RCV preaches that I love. I evangelized all the time in the 80’s. There was little fruit, and what fruit there was did not remain except with rare exceptions.

Preachers hold great revivals nowadays. Thousands “come to Christ.” Six months later, church attendance is not one iota different. Thousands of backsliders, not Christians, were created, inoculated against the Gospel.

Or, there’s people who proclaim a less “user friendly” Gospel, as your friend Chesterton put it. Those basically get no results, at least not in the US. That’s because there’s no demonstration of the life of Christ.

Henry Blackaby wrote a book called Experiencing God. He had people going to a college to witness. He basically told them to stop preaching and start following God around. Within a week, an unbeliever had invited one of their members to a Bible study to teach her unbelieving friends the Gospel.

The Navigators call that method “Friendship Evangelism,” and it is remarkably effective because it is close to the method recommended by the Scriptures. It involves believers being together and being in the world but not of it. It was so effective that one believer said, “I don’t like to invite people to our Bible studies because they always get saved there. I don’t get a chance to lead anyone to the Lord.”

The fact is, the reason people were being saved at their Bible studies is because those people were being led to the Lord. The Lord is present wherever two or more are gathered in his name.

The Effectiveness of the Church

When Paul was struck down on the road to Damascus, Jesus himself appeared to Paul. Jesus did not preach to Paul, though. Jesus sent him to the church in Damascus.

As anyone who reads my blogs knows, I have been reading the writings of the 2nd century church for a couple decades now, getting light from them on the writings of the 1st century church (the New Testament).

It’s interesting to note that there are no famous evangelists of the 2nd century. However, the 2nd century church was so effective that by the end of the 2nd century, around A.D. 200, Tertullian could write the emperor (who likely never saw Tertullian’s letter) and tell him that if he banished all the Christians for refusing to participate in war, he would be left with no one to rule over.

That’s an exaggeration, of course, but it does tell you the extent to which Christians had spread by the end of the 2nd century.

How did that happen?

When Justin, who also wrote a letter to the emperor, but fifty years earlier, describes those who have been converted, he mentions just three ways. They …

  1. Saw the consistency of their [Christian] neighbors lives
  2. They saw the honesty with which Christians transacted business
  3. They saw the extraordinary forbearance of Christian travelers when they were defrauded

The testimony of the Church is powerful, just as Jesus said it would be. Our unity and love will convince the world (Jn. 13:34-35; Jn. 17:20-23). Together we create, not a little light, but a light so bright that it cannot be hidden (Matt. 5:13-16).

Thus, Isaiah cries, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”

That’s from Isaiah 60:1. Read what the results of our arising and shining are. Talk about effective evangelism!

Preaching

Preaching is excellent. Preaching is a wonderful thing. As I said above, when a believer is attached to the vine, which means being in the church, which is the many-membered body of Christ, then he will be full of the Word. Wherever he goes the Word will come out of him, whether by speaking or by extraordinary forbearance when defrauded. People will actually ask him for the reason for the hope that is in him.

If you read through Romans 3 and 4 and James 2, you will see that Paul had a much different emphasis than James when it comes to faith and works. This isn’t because James and Paul had a different message. This is because the Christians in Rome needed faith emphasized in order to deliver them from the bondage of the Law. The Christians to which James wrote needed to be delivered from their belief in a false faith detached from works.

There is a time for everything. It would have been inappropriate to send James’ letter to the Christians (there was likely no church yet) in Rome. It would have been inappropriate to send Paul’s letter to those with a false faith that James wrote to.

So, it is wrong to emphasize preaching to evangelicals today. It is time to emphasize the church to the Protestants, who have forgotten it, its authority (1 Tim. 3:15), and its promises of truth (1 Jn. 2:27).

If this blog, and the comments in it, were being written to Mennonites or Amish, then probably an emphasis on evangelism would be a good thing. The fact is, though, that Protestants have created, by their emphasis on evangelism, a false doctrine that gets in the way of Christian growth, divides the saints, causes many to fall away, and prevents far more people from coming to Christ than it brings to Christ.

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Roman Catholics, Quote Mining, and Honesty

Posted on 11/10/2009 by Paul Pavao

I debated whether Roman Catholicism was really a topic that fits this blog. I thought some about the name of the blog. It is “The Rest of the Old, Old Story.”

This post definitely fits the blog title because I’m going to spend most of the time giving you the rest of the story left out by the Roman Catholics.

Quote Mining

Today, I was accused of quote mining for my teaching on apostolic succession.  The person accusing me of quote mining was Roman Catholic, of course, since it is a Roman Catholic doctrine I’m refuting on that page.

First, what is quote mining?

Quote mining is pulling quotes out of context to make an author say what he never said. One common example used is that the Bible says that Judas went out and hung himself. It also says, “Go thou and do likewise” and “What you do, do quickly.”

Put together, those verses say that you should hang yourself and do it quickly. Obviously, the Bible teaches no such thing.

Another example of quote mining could be obtained from my last paragraph. Someone could say, “Shammah said, ‘Those verses say that you should hang yourself and do it quickly.'” Obviously, I’ve said no such thing even though that’s an exact quote.

Roman Catholic Quote Mining

It’s funny that a Roman Catholic should accuse me of quote mining because they’re masters at it. The person who accused me of quote mining sent me to a page that he says has passages from the church fathers in context.

Really?

Let’s see. Let’s begin with this quote:

Thereupon Victor, who presided over the church at Rome, immediately attempted to cut off from the common unity the parishes of all Asia, with the churches that agreed with them, as heterodox; and he wrote letters and declared all the brethren there wholly excommunicate.

They quote a little before that sentence in order to explain the topic over which Victor excommunicated all the churches of Asia. The issue was on what day to celebrate Passover. Victor and the church at Rome thought it ought always to be on a Sunday, and the churches in the east were celebrating it on the actual day of Passover.

Victor excommunicated them for it.

Well, there you have it. Look at Victor’s power. He was able to excommunicate all the eastern churches. This was A.D. 195, they say, though it was actually closer to A.D. 170. So there must have been a pope as early as 170, thus refuting Protestant charges that there was no pope in the early church.

But what’s the rest of the old, old story?

But this did not please all the bishops. And they besought him to consider the things of peace, and of neighborly unity and love. Words of theirs are extant, sharply rebuking Victor. Among them was Irenæus, who, sending letters in the name of the brethren in Gaul over whom he presided, maintained that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be observed only on the Lord’s day. He fittingly admonishes Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom.

The Catholic web site didn’t actually give the reference for the passage they cited. I had to go find it. Fortunately, it wasn’t too difficult because I already knew about this passage. It’s in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, book V, ch. 24.

Talk about quote mining! They didn’t mention that the reason Victor wanted to excommunicate them is because he wrote a letter in the name of the church of Rome telling the eastern churches to observe Passover the western way. Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus–a church that carried the exact same authority as Rome because both were founded by apostles–was upset about this. Rather than just give vent to his anger, he conferred with other bishops in Asia (which would be modern Turkey, not Russia or China or India) and was told it was fine to write Victor back telling him no.

The letter says they had always celebrated Passover on Nisan 14, and they would continue to do so. They were not going to forsake the tradition passed down to them from apostles.

Then, when Victor, who also had to be helped by Irenaeus in order not to slip into some gnostic heresy, couldn’t handle the response and flew off the handle, “bishops” sharply rebuke Victor, and Irenaeus, perhaps the most respected bishop of his day, “fittingly” admonished him.

So you decide for yourself. Did the Roman Catholics give you the whole story? On the matter of the papacy, they never do because there is no evidence whatsoever for a pope in the early church unless you quote mine.

More Quote Mining

Most of the quotes that aren’t ambiguous on the page I linked above are quote mines. Here’s another example:

And he says to him again after the resurrection, ‘Feed my sheep.’ It is on him that he builds the Church, and to him that he entrusts the sheep to feed. And although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single Chair, thus establishing by his own authority the source and hallmark of the (Church’s) oneness. No doubt the others were all that Peter was, but a primacy is given to Peter, and it is (thus) made clear that there is but one flock which is to be fed by all the apostles in common accord. If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he still confidence that he is in the Church? This unity firmly should we hold and maintain, especially we bishops, presiding in the Church, in order that we may approve the episcopate itself to be the one and undivided.

They do at least reference this one. It’s from The Unity of the Church, a tract written by the great bishop Cyprian. He was bishop of Carthage in north Africa from 249 to 257.

Cyprian does talk a lot about Peter’s primacy. He’s the first early Christian writer to talk about Peter having the keys of the kingdom and passing them on.

However, do you notice anything missing from that paragraph above? How about a mention of Rome?

Those who read Cyprian know that the key phrase in the passage above is “in order that we may approve the episcopate itself to be the one and undivided.”

That’s translated pretty poorly there. The Ante-Nicene Fathers set has it as “that we may also prove the episcopate itself to be one and undivided.”

What does he mean by the episcopate being one and undivided?

Well, the episcopate means all the bishops. Shortly after, he adds, “The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.”

In other words, all the bishops together are one leadership of the Church. They, together, received the keys of the kingdom from Peter. Not the bishop of Rome. Sorry.

Is that really what Cyprian meant? Well, as it turns out, Cyprian actually talked about whether the bishop of Rome had primacy. In fact, he called a council of 87 bishops in 258 to discuss the claims of Stephen, bishop of Rome, who is the first bishop of Rome that we know of to claim he has authority over other bishops.

According to the records of the council, Cyprian opened up the council with a speech in which he said:

For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power,
has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.

Hmm. I wonder why that Catholic web site didn’t quote this?

So now you know … the rest of the old, old story.

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Revival Preaching

Posted on 11/09/2009 by Paul Pavao

A fellow named Daniel Hamilton left me a link on one of his comments. It has videos of the preaching of one B.H. Clendennen.

Excellent preaching. Completely based in the traditions of men.

Listen, my friends, Jesus did not raise up a church that is a building. He did not raise up a church that is a series of meetings, no matter how good the preacher is at those meetings.

He hates your pews!!!

And your revival preaching isn’t much better.

The Church

In the church, leaders can have confidence that every one of the people of God is going to be growing until they enter the grave (Php. 1:6). The grace of God will be coming to them, and they will be blossoming like a branch on a healthy vine.

That is not the product of individual relationships with Christ. A hand is never joined directly to the head.

John 15 is not talking about individual relationships with Christ. It is not talking about revival. It is talking about the Church because today, unlike 2,000 years ago, Christ is a many-membered body (1 Cor. 12:12), not an individual man walking the earth.

In the church, John 15 happens. Branches just grow on their own due to being attached to the vine.

In revival-preaching religions John 15 doesn’t happen. Whether a preacher is preaching regularly or not, lots of members of that organization–I don’t care to call it a church–are not growing. If there is no preacher preaching revival, then almost all of the members will fall away.

Not so in the church. The church is a family of individuals joined to one another by their birth into a heavenly life, mediated by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God unites them as though they were one body, and they live one life together.

They care for one another. There are no “visiting” members. Their members have given up their own lives to be a part of this one new life which is the church of God.

In that place, where no one calls anything their own, but they have all things in common (Acts 4:32; but by this I do not mean enforced communism, but a lack of care about possessions and a great care about one another)–in that place, there is “great grace” (Acts 4:33).

In that place, life flows to the branches whether there is revival preaching or not. Let there be a B.H. Clendennen, a Leonard Ravenhill, an Evan Roberts … or let there not be. Because life flows from Christ into the body, the blood circulates through it, and the members are so joined that if you pinch one another will cry ouch–because of this, each member grows.

Oh, yes, there are exceptions, but look how Christ described those exceptions:

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. (Jn. 15:2)

Why is such a branch taken away? Because it is that branch’s fault that it is not bearing fruit. Grace and life always flow to every member of the church–where there is a church as I’ve described it. If a branch is not bearing fruit, it is because that branch is resisting the grace of God.

I do not speak here from Bible interpretation but from real experience. In the church there is a power that is unknown to the preachers of revival. It is unknown to the attenders of Christian clubs. It is unknown to denominational Christians clinging to brilliantly-devised doctrines.

What I’ve described here I’ve seen happen, repeatedly, and now it is my ongoing experience at Rose Creek Village.

So, listen to Mr. Clendennen’s preaching. It’s inspiring. Be inspired.

If, however, you wish to continue in the faith, join yourself to the body of Christ. Repent of your denomination and your pew-sitting. Find a brother and act like he’s a brother. Find a sister and act like she’s a sister. Promise one another that you are bound for life, that you will never make a decision alone again, but that you will together seek the wisdom that is present where two or more are gathered in his name.

Obtain the learning that is promised only to the local church, the pillar and support of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), the anointing given to a plural you (1 Jn. 2:19,27). This alone will provide for the saints a revival, a life, that will cause them–across the board–to continue to the end.

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Salvation Is Not a Plan, It’s a Man

Posted on 11/09/2009 by Paul Pavao

Except the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus make a man sick of his opinions, he may hold them to doomsday for me; for no opinion, I repeat is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation is the preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God.

– George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, and III, p. 391

To remind people that Jesus Christ is real and that he himself can save has been a priority of my speaking about Christ for many years.

Recently my father in the faith, Noah Taylor, used the phrase, “Salvation is not a plan, it’s a man,” in a men’s meeting. The words captivated me.

I decided I wanted to write a booklet on those words, when, lo and behold!, I found out that George MacDonald already had! Over a century ago!

I don’t want to share the whole thing with you; just a few excerpts. These are from The Truth in Jesus:

When you say that to be saved a man must hold this or that, then you are forsaking the living God and his will and putting trust in some notion about him or his will. To make my meaning clearer: Some of you say that we must trust in the finished work of Christ. Or you say that our faith must be in the merits of Christ–in the atonement he has made–in the blood he has shed.

All these statements are a simple repudiation of the living Lord in whom we are told to believe. … No manner or amount of belief about him is the faith of the New Testament. (emphasis in original)

It goes without saying that I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Look around. Christians know that “trusting in the finished work of Christ” and “trusting in the merits of Christ” doesn’t work. We’re always looking for a better way to say it. We tell people they have to “really” believe. We tell them they have to “actually trust, not just give intellectual assent.” We give them illustrations about sitting in a chair or getting in the tightrope walkers wheelbarrow.

It does no good. Jesus doesn’t have a wheelbarrow, and no one can see the chair. “Really” believing doesn’t produce any better results than mere intellectual assent, and as soon as we remove works we remove the ability to tell the difference.

The Problem’s the Gospel You Preach

Some of you will be offended by being told the problem is in the Gospel you preach. Others of you will be thrilled. You’re tired of leading people to the Lord, then watching them show no interest in God or church. If anything, they’re frightened to see you again.

The problem’s the Gospel you preach.

Jesus shed his blood for our atonement and for the forgiveness of  our sins. That’s the true doctrine of the atonement.

It is not the Gospel.

The Gospel is to believe in Christ, not in the doctrine of the atonement.

If you read the letters to the churches you will find the doctrine of the atonement discussed regularly. It provokes us to obedience, awe, and praise to know that the precious blood of the Lamb of God was shed for our salvation.

If you read the book of Acts, you will find that the doctrine of the atonement is NEVER discussed with sinners. It is NEVER preached to the lost.

Because it’s not the Gospel.

The Gospel

I’m going to let George MacDonald finish this blog entry out. Again, all of this is from The Truth in Jesus.

It is the one terrible heresy of the church that it has always been presenting something else than obedience as faith in Christ.

Do you ask, “What is faith in him?”
I answer, the leaving of your way, your objects, your self, and the taking of his and him. It is the leaving of your trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, in atonement itself, and doing as he tells you. (emphasis in original)

While the mind is occupied in enquiring, “Do I believe or feel this thing right?” the true question is forgotton: “Have I left all to follow him?”
To the man who gives himself to the living Lord, every belief will necessarily come aright. The Lord himself will see that his disciple believe aright concerning him.

Sorry, I lied. I’ll let the writer of Hebrews have the final word:

 [Jesus] became the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him. (5:9, emphasis mine)

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Christian Parenting: How to Keep Your Children from Jumping Ship

Posted on 10/17/2009 by Paul Pavao

We all want to know about Christian parenting. We would all like to know how to keep our children from jumping ship and going to the world.

Today, I heard a speech by Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, who blames belief in modern scientific evidence for things like evolution as the reason why children jump ship. It’s “doubts about the Bible,” he says, that cause children to fall away from the faith.

“Why did these people leave the church? They didn’t trust the Bible, they weren’t taught to trust the Bible, they weren’t taught it was a book of history, and they weren’t taught to defend their faith and to have answers for the secular attacks.”

Hmm.

I have six children. I realized evolution is true—that humans and all of life evolved from one or a few common ancestors—in 1995. My oldest child was 4 at the time.

I’ve told them since then that I believe in evolution. I conducted a class for high schoolers on the evolution-creation debate, allowing the children–who all knew which side I was on–to research the subject for themselves. 10 out of 11 walked away confident that evolution was true.

Most of those high schoolers are walking with God as adults today. By this, I don’t mean that they pray, read their Bible, and attend the church. I mean that they are avidly walking with God, seeking his will, and wanting to bring the Gospel to the world.

My three teenage sons love God and are respected young men. My fourth child, a daughter, is just coming into her teen years, and she is following in her brothers’ footsteps.

I have taught them to treat evidence honestly. I have taught them that the Bible is not a book of science, and that the history of Genesis one–at least–is not literal. I have taught them that there could not have been a worldwide flood.

Not one of those young people or my children has fallen away because of knowing I believe those things or because of adopting those things themselves.

Why should they fall away? I believe those things, and I gave up pursuing the world in order to build God’s kingdom. I love and serve the people around me because I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, not because it’s just my habit or nature inherited from evolutionary ancestors.

In fact, I’ve taught my children to look for the fingerprint of God everywhere. I’ve taught them not to miss the work of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God in themselves or other people, and they are wholeheartedly devoting themselves to that pursuit.

They’ve managed to do all this without believing that the Bible is a book of science.

What Really Makes Kids Jump Ship

Michael Pearl has written an incredible book called Jumping Ship. It talks about the real reason children quit believing that they ought to live for Jesus Christ.

The primary reason is because you don’t.

Living for Christ is a spiritual thing to do. It doesn’t matter whether you think Genesis is literal or figurative. It doesn’t matter even whether you believe the Bible is inspired.

What matters is whether you think Jesus Christ is worth obeying and you obtain the spiritual power from him to do so.

That, my friends, is everything.

There are other things that affect whether your children grow up into faith. I don’t want to insult some good, godly Christian parents that have seen their children snatched into the world. Your parenting, the influence of society or an unbelieving spouse, and numerous other issues can cause your children to jump ship.

Doubts about a literal Bible will, however, never cause children to stop following Jesus Christ.

Doubts about a literal Bible will cause children to doubt the Bible is literal. And if your faith is completely summed up in a literal, scientifically-accurate Bible, it will topple when your children are educated.

An educated child will know that the Bible is not scientifically accurate. He or she will figure out rapidly that when the Bible says the sky is hard–as it does in Job 37:18 directly and in Genesis 1 by implication and by use of the word firmament–it is not scientifically accurate. They will realize that when the Bible says that the earth is set on pillars, as it does in 1 Sam. 2:8, it cannot be scientifically accurate.

What will you do then if your faith is based on the Bible’s scientific accuracy?

What will you do when they realize there is no reconciling Genesis 1 and Genesis 2–at least not if you use any reasonable thinking? What will you do when they realize that rabbits don’t really chew the cud, it only looks like they do? What will you do if they really take a hard look at the earth screaming out to them in its layers and fossils that life has changed over long geologic periods?

You will lose them; that’s what you’ll do.

Unless you’ve taught them to follow Jesus Christ and given them an example by your life that he’s real and powerful.

Christian Parenting and the Commands of Christ

I can find many commands for Christian parents to give their children an example of faith. I can find many commands for Christian parents to teach their children the things God has done.

I can’t find any that tell Christian parents to hide their children from science and the testimony of the earth.

My children know that the molecules we’re made of are produced by supernovas. They’re awestruck by the fact that we’re made of stardust.

They, like myself, think God did that.

My children know the story of Rose Creek Village. They know about some amazing Scriptural prophecies about how God builds the house of God that he did in founding the church here in Rose Creek, TN. They know about the numerous miraculous events that established the church here and that keep it going.

My children know about God’s work in the hearts of people. They know about the devil’s work in the hearts of his children when the work of God expands and threatens the domain of darkness.

They believe all that is the hand of God.

My children know that following Christ is spiritual. They know that when they’re weak, they need a strength that comes from heaven.

My children know that dad is human and makes some really bad mistakes. They also know that public and private repentance, the forgiveness of the saints, and the mercy and cleansing of God are part of following God. They know I’ll come back even to them to repent for my human failings and to pray to God for grace to do better.

They know about everything I can possibly give them about the work of God throughout the ages, and they believe.

It is not questions about a literal Bible that make people fall away. It is questions about the reality of Jesus Christ that make children fall away.

Do you want your children to stand? Plant their feet upon the rock. The rock is obedience to Christ, and the Bible commands you to teach them about the works of God, not about the scientific accuracy of the Bible.

Sorry, Ken Ham. I just can’t agree with you about what the problem is because I’ve yet to see it be a problem.

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Obedience and Christian “Salvation”

Posted on 09/26/2009 by Paul Pavao

What is salvation? I like to use the example of a saved drowning person. The saved person is the one who’s standing on the shore. The unsaved person is the one in the water, flapping their arms in the air and going under for the 3rd time.

It’s the same with Christian salvation. Peter likes to talk about escaping the corruption or pollution that is in the world through lust (2 Pet. 1:4; 2:20).  The writer of Hebrews describes people who are enlightened and taste of the heavenly gift and the power of the world to come (Heb. 6:4-5). Paul tells the Corinthians that they “were” unrighteous, but now they’re “washed,” “sanctified,” and “justified.”

Those are impressive religious words, but if we don’t define them, then they don’t mean anything at all.

  • “Washed” means baptized. (Everyone–and I mean everyone–believed that from the time of the apostles until a 100 years after the Reformation. So if that’s not true, then the apostles didn’t know how to preach the Gospel.)
  • “Sanctified” means made holy. It means separated or set aside for the use of God.
  • “Justified” means made righteous. It literally means that. It’s a cousin to the adjective “righteous.” It’s popular today to define righteousness as nothing more than being seen as righteous by God. George MacDonald called this a “revolting legal fiction,” and that’s exactly what it is. “Justified” means to actually be made righteous so that you walk in righteousness (1 Jn. 3:7).

So how does one obtain all these things?

Obedience: The Path to Christian Salvation

The Bible makes the general statement that Jesus has become the author of salvation to all who obey him (Heb. 5:9). (Did you know the Bible said that?)

However, it has a lot more specific things to say about obtaining salvation by obedience.

At the top of this post, do you remember I defined salvation from drowning as standing on the shore? There are a lot of specific ways that you can see the fruit of your Christian salvation in the way of a transformed life. I’ve been listening to Psalms and Proverbs on tape the last couple days, and they have a LOT to say about that.

Obedience and Tangible Salvation in the Psalms

Let’s start with Ps. 111:10. It says:

A good understanding have all those who do his commandments.

I quote that a lot because Noah, the head elder of our church, quotes it a lot. What I didn’t realize is how often that’s repeated over the next 40 Psalms and the first few chapters of Proverbs.

It starts in the very next Psalm:

Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man that fears the Lord and takes great delight in his commandments.

His descendants shall be mighty on the earth.  The generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house, and his righteousness will last forever. To the upright light will arise in the darkness; he is gracious, full of compassion, and righteous. (112:1-4)

Now that’s standing on the shore, rescued from drowning! That’s real, tangible salvation!

Psalm 112 goes on and gets better than that, but so do later Psalms. How about this incredible passage from Psalm 119. It’s not even just a promise. It’s what David says was his actual experience:

Through your commandments, you make me wiser than my enemies … I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts. … How sweet are your words to my taste! Sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. (vv. 98-104)

Wow! You can’t beat that!

How’d David get so wise? How did he understand more than the ancients?

He kept God’s precepts.

A good understanding have all those who obey him.

Obedience and Tangible Salvation in the Proverbs

What sort of wisdom can you gain from Proverbs?

The proverbs of Solomon … to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear and increase learning; a man of understanding will obtain wise counsel to understand a proverb and its interpretation, to understand the words of the wise and their riddles.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (1:1-7)

Proverbs is all about obeying God. Proverbs is practical wisdom. Leaf through the proverbs. They do not talk about esoteric things or deep theology. They talk about lending money, border disputes, laziness, getting up early, and a lot of other very down-to-earth, practical things.

But if you will obey, Jesus–who is the Wisdom of Proverbs–will give you understanding in all those other things.

If you try to get understanding of deep theology by study, then Paul tells you what will happen:

The purpose of the command is love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Some have turned aside from this to empty words. The desire to be teachers of the law, but they don’t understand what they teach nor the things about which they make confident assertions. (1 Tim. 1:5-7)

Solomon begins the Proverbs by telling his son–probably a general reference to any student listening to his Proverbs–to avoid stealing and murder and the people who steal and murder (1:10-18).

Pretty basic, isn’t it!

The fear of  the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not deep study!

After saying only that, Solomon says that Wisdom is walking around in the streets, crying out to the simple, trying to get someone to listen.

So later, she says, when they are in trouble and crying out for her, she will not answer.

Why? Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.

Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you; to deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man who speaks perverse things. (Prov. 2:11-12)

Do you want to be delivered from error? Obey God. Discretion will preserve you. Understanding will keep you.

Uprightness and Righteousness

This is really important. I don’t know where to put it or how to phrase it so that its importance is properly emphasized, but this is really important:

Uprightness is a choice; righteousness is a gift.

And the gift of righteousness is given to the upright in heart.

Ps. 36:10 reads:

Prolong your lovingkindness to those that know you, and your righteousness to the upright in heart.

Ps 112:4 says:

To the upright light arises in the darkness; he is gracious, compassionate, and righteous.

All these things are another way of saying what Hebrews 5:8 says. Jesus is the author of eternal  salvation to those that obey him.

Faith and obedience were intertwined in the Hebrew mind. Only we western legalists could conceive of something so utterly ridiculous as claiming to have faith in someone and then ignoring what he tells you.

Imagine a guide on an African safari. He’s leading a group through the jungle. One of the guys keeps patting him on the back and telling him, “I have faith in you.” However, the next time the group stops to rest, and the guide calls an end to the break and starts forward, Mr. I-have-faith-in-you says, “Hey, I thought this trip was by faith. I don’t have to do what you say.”

What do you think? Spiritual? Or just ridiculous?

  • The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them. (Prov. 11:6)
  • Righteousness keeps the one that is upright in the way. (Prov. 21:18)
  • He became the author of eternal salvation for them that obey him. (Heb. 5:9)
Posted in Holiness, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Health Care Plan, Debate, and My One Request

Posted on 09/21/2009 by Paul Pavao

On the Health Care Plan, have you noticed how no one has talked about doctors and hospitals charging less money?

Rose Creek Village has businesses that make a good portion of  their money by working for rich doctors … doctors with jaguars, twenty thousand square foot houses, and money to spend for very fine trim, paint, and faux finishes.

I had my shoulder put back in socket at McNairy Regional Hospital, which according to the $250 book, Customized Fee Analyzer, normally charges 4 to 5 times standard rates for this area for its services, despite being in one of the poorest counties in the country. The doctor talked to me for two minutes, then had me wait for about 90 minutes on a table, during which time he didn’t see me at all. After 90 minutes, he came in and worked on my arm for a half an hour and popped it back in.

He charged me $400 for that half hour.

Doctors need to make $800 per hour???

The hospital charged me $643 for walking into the emergency room. They charged me $90 per shot for six shots I wasn’t given. I called more than 15 times to talk to someone about the six $90 shots that didn’t happen, and I always got someone who couldn’t help me and a promise that someone would call me back.

They charged me $280 for being processed out of the emergency room. They charged me $40 for the $2 scrub shirt they sent me out with because they had to cut mine off. Total charge: $2400, not including the doctor, whose charge was $400 extra.

I paid them $1200, told them I’d see them in court if they wanted more, and then they left me alone. The doctor’s office agreed to take $200, a bit more reasonable, but still $400/hour for his time.

My One Health Care Request

Require doctors to charge less!

Do they need the money? You tell me. They’re hiring our top end carpentry and painters, driving jaguars, and living in multi-million dollar homes. That has to happen?

I read this today in this news report:

Fears over rising costs have been a critical factor in kick-starting the reform debate. The US spends around $7400 per person per year on healthcare, twice the health costs in Canada, the next highest spender.

I lived in Germany as a civilian for four years. America’s health care costs are ridiculous. There’s no other explanation. Limbaugh and others can go on and on about how socialist medicine doesn’t work, but I lived there, and it worked great.

We got a visitor from America while I was there who had no health insurance.  He contracted a kidney infection and was in the hospital for a week with a catheter for most of that time. He got out, the infection flared back up, and he went in another week just being treated with antibiotics.

Total cost? $3,000.

Now I know this was 1986, 23 years ago, but I assure you it was multiple thousands of dollars cheaper than it would have been in America. I’ve been treated by Germans, and I’ve been treated by Americans, and if anything, the treatment in Germany was better, cleaner, and more efficient.

I Don’t Get It

This health care plan, if it doesn’t address America’s ludicrous costs and its over-wealthy doctors, is a waste of time. Yet I’ve not heard one news report yet addressing the issue of simply telling doctors and hospitals their costs will be limited.

Will they go broke? No. Look the world over. We’re the most expensive health care providers in the world by double. A friend of mine flew to England to have a hernia operation. He paid cash, and it was cheaper to fly there and back and get the operation than to have it in the US … in South Dakota.

Good grief.

This is completely inappropriate to the normal subject of my blog, but it’s my blog, so …

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The Councils, the Creeds, and the Salvation of Souls

Posted on 09/20/2009 by Paul Pavao

I always say there’s nothing like reading error to motivate one to write truth.

I’m prone to writing error here and there, too. I’m human. I have things I don’t understand. I have things I forget to consider.

Teaching and Truth

Hopefully those of us who take it upon ourselves to teach will at least never make errors on purpose. Some do, however, Some are so bent on some supposed truth that they couldn’t care less about facts, history, Scripture or anything else. They’ll twist anything to prove their point. (Thus, the anti-Norman Geisler post two days ago.)

Catholicism, the Councils, the Creeds and Men’s Salvation

The one today, however, is not a purposeful twisting of history, I’m quite sure. It’s simply not considering history. It’s so easy not to notice the obvious.

On a “Equipping Catholics” blog, I read:

It is very important that we take a moment to recognize the impact heresies and anti-Christ philosophies can have on the eternal destinies of their adherents. False concepts of Christ can pull people away from the only narrow path that Jesus said leads to eternal salvation. False doctrines about Christ can result in the eternal loss of one’s soul.

And that is precisely why the Father gave us the Church — to protect us from those falsehoods and erroneous philosophies about salvation, sin and judgment …

Indeed, it was the early Church Councils (such as Nicea, Ephesus, Constantinople and Chalcedon) that handed down to the 21st century Church what is still considered the orthodox Christian faith — much of which is illustrated in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

What this writer means is that it’s a good thing that these councils came along to defeat heresies like Arianism and Nestorianism, or else people might be pulled away “from the only narrow path that Jesus said leads to eternal salvation.”

What the writer did not consider–nor have most of the rest of us considered–is whether it worked.

Did the councils of Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon lead people to follow Christ on the narrow path and save their souls?

Did they not rather lead to a top-heavy hierarchy, numerous false conversions, and a church full of corruption, superstition, and false doctrines? A church which later would be rightly called antichrist by the multitudes that fled its corruption and persecution?

Catholicism and the Dark Ages

After the councils, Christians became the persecutors rather than the persecuted. Rather than desecrating temples of idols, they created temples of idols so much that the emperor Julian the Apostate declared that Christians surpassed the pagans in their hero worship (by worshipping saints).

The last of the seven councils, of which the aforementioned are the first four, approved the “veneration” of icons. That Council, overriding a previous one, declared that it was appropriate to proskuneo a picture of a saint, as long as you didn’t latreia it.

Both those words are translated worship in the NT. In fact, both are used in Jesus’ statement to the devil, when he quoted Deuteronomy, “You shall worship (proskuneo) the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (latreia).” It seems clear to me that Jesus would not have approved of the worship of a picture of Peter, any more than Peter, who rejected proskuneo from Cornelius (Acts 10:25), would.

The Church produced from these great councils refused to allow its followers to hear the Scriptures, whether written or read aloud, in a language their followers could understand.  They burned John Huss and William Tyndale alive for giving people the Scriptures in the vernacular, and they burned John Wycliffe’s bones twelve years after he was buried because they couldn’t find him while he was alive.

This Church created “the Dark Ages,” the greatest time of ignorance in the world since before Sumeria in 6000 BC, and to this day they continue to produce Christians that are well over 90% Christian in name only.

I don’t think the councils succeeded at keeping people on the narrow path for the salvation of their soul.

Would Allowing Heresy Have Done Better?

Yes.

I suppose you want me to give reasons for asserting that.

  1. It could not have done worse; that’s impossible.
  2. It may have prevented the church gaining political power, and that’s always better.
  3. The churches did not hold a council to rout the gnostics, but they were driven out, anyway.
  4. If the Church had not gone into cahoots with the emperor, they may not have admitted all those unconverted pagans who switched to Christianity for purely political reasons.

Since the Church did hold the councils, and since they did get political help to win their battles, history went the way it did. We’ll never know what would have happened had it not happened.

However, I find it impossible to believe that a lack of understanding of the Trinity, which Tertullian said was common in the church in A.D. 200,  could have led to as many people forsaking the narrow path and losing their souls than the rout of councils and creeds did.

Posted in Church, History | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments

Ronald Reagan Buried 20 Trillion Dollars in the White House Rose Garden

Posted on 09/20/2009 by Paul Pavao

My wife tells me that the ridiculous story that Ronald Reagan buried 20 trillion dollars in the White House Rose Garden actually made it to the Google news listing last night. I found a copy of it here.

As soon as I heard it, I started laughing. When  I heard it was buried in mason jars, I laughed louder.

This is not my typical blog post, but I couldn’t resist talking about this. Humor, politics, and math combined. Irresistible.

Zero Is a Really Big Number

I love math. One of the things I love about math is how big a number zero is.

Just three zeros turns 1 into 1,000. Three more zeros are worth 999,000, as they turn 1,000 into 1,000,000.

The next three  zeros are worth 999 million as they turn a million into a billion.

What’s the point?

The White House Has a Really Big Rose Garden

The article says that the money was buried in “low denomination bills.”

Yeah, right.

Let’s assume these “low denomination bills” are 100’s. If you divide 20 trillion by 100, you only get to take two zeros off. You still have 200 billion.

Do you know how much room 200 billion $100 bills takes up?

Well, assuming that it takes 250 bills to make an inch (which is close to true of 20# typing paper, and I think that money’s thicker), then you have a stack of bills 800 million inches high. Divide that by 5,280 and you get a stack of money 151,515 miles high. That’s 60% of the way to the moon.

You’re going to bury that in the White House rose garden?

We did some more math and determined that Ronald Reagan had to dig a cavern 5 miles long, 1 mile wide, and 100 feet deep. And that’s assuming there’s no mason jars or oven mitts taking up room with them.

That’s a big rose garden.

Where Did Reagan Get the Money?

I was 26 years old in 1987 when Reagan did this. I remember hearing about the deficit and the national debt. To this day, the national debt is still less that 20 trillion dollars. In 1987, the federal budget was less than a billion dollars.

So I looked up the gross domestic product for 1987. It was difficult to find, but I did find that the gross domestic product for “all industries” totaled 4.8 trillion dollars or so.

So Ronald Reagan buried something over 4 times what the entire United States spent in 1987?

Right.

Ronald Reagan’s Buried Money Was a Joke

I don’t know who started the joke, but if you read the article, it’s obviously tongue-in-cheek.

Computers are computers, even if they’re run by Google. I’m sure one of those quick spiders, which can read keywords but can’t see tongues or cheeks, picked it up.

You can’t find it on Google News today, even with a search, so some insightful (mildly) human has removed it.

It’s not April 1, so I don’t know why the story was written. It was funny, though. I loved the comment attributed to Barack Obama:

“‘Our economic worries are no more,’ announced a jubilant Barack Obama.”

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The Historic Christian Faith? – Norman Geisler, Luther’s 95 Theses, and the Bible

Posted on 09/18/2009 by Paul Pavao

Error, lies, and foolishness are always excellent motivators for me to blog.

The particular embarrassing morass of propaganda to which I am referring is John Ankerberg’s interview with Norman Geisler. The interview is such a collection of Protestant fantasy that I hardly know where to start.

However, start I will.

Norman Geisler

Geisler doesn’t believe in Purgatory. Fair enough. I don’t either.

To Geisler, however, it appears that means he can pick any parts of church history he wants and say that they don’t either. In his case, he picks Luther’s 95 theses, and then he tells us:

Luther … tacked up his 95 theses and said, “There is no purgatory. There are no prayers for the dead. You can’t buy people out of purgatory.”

That’s nice. Norman Geisler passes himself off–and is believed to be by a multitude of the ignorant sheep that will always, and should, constitute the majority of the church–an expert on “the historic Christian faith.” Yet, it is apparent from this interview that he makes up his own historic Christian faith.

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses

I have Luther’s 95 theses up on my Christian history web site. Try going there and taking a look at number 26. There Luther suggests that the pope, rather than offering to remit sins through keys of the kingdom that he does not possess, ought to seek remission by praying. The obvious context, as is clear from the rest of the theses, is that the pope ought to be praying for souls in purgatory rather than claiming the ability to release them.

Nothing in the 95 theses denies purgatory. Luther was still a Catholic priest at the time, somewhat under the delusion that the pope was going to support him in his ideas. Thesis 50, for example, says:

Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the pardon-preachers, he would rather that St. Peter’s church should go to ashes, than that it should be built up with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep.

I’m pretty sure Luther would deny purgatory later, though I’ve never looked it up, and I can’t be certain of it. But during the time of the 95 theses, he was a good Roman Catholic monk.

History

This is history. History is where you read what a person said, and then you tell people what that person said.

History is not taking your own words and wishes and putting them in the mouths of historical figures. Doing that is blasphemy, lying, and deceit, and it will cause God to send you to hell.

Read it for yourself. The Bible says that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire.

Beware, Norman Geisler and John Ankerberg. I don’t care what service you think you are rendering to people by defending them from Jehovah’s Witnesses, Way missionaries, Mormons, and Roman Catholics. If you defend them by lying, you will have your part in the lake of fire. If you create a new gospel, a new Christian history, and a way that is contrary to the apostolic way–no matter how much you defend it with the Bible–then you are to be anathametized by all true Christians.

The Bible

Geisler also presents an imaginary history of the Bible in that interview. Almost nothing he says is true. I don’t have time to go into it here, nor time to research all the quotes I’d have to research for you, but I have a page on it and I can highly recommend A High View of Scripture? on the subject. A High View of Scripture? is an Evangelical book published by a well-respected Evangelical publisher, Baker Books.

‘Nuff said, as the saying goes.

Posted in Bible, Gospel, History, Modern Doctrines | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments