Decisions, decisions — which superhero cliché to use first?

How about none. Instead, we’ll forgo an introduction and just “take off.” Oops.

So here they are, the first of I’m-guessing-20 comparisons¹: modern spiritual superheroes² in trivia-slideshow style, along with some very amateur Photoshopping. ³

Superman — John Piper

Superman

Mild-mannered by day, and passionate and powerful — also by day. Surely the first and most popular of superheroes could not be assigned to any other modern-day author/teacher.

Like the Man of Steel, Piper’s care for humanity is easily seen. God-given fervor for seeing, savoring and delighting in doctrinal truth help him soar. He can bend Scriptural steel with his bare hands, shoot heat rays from his eyes. And Piper even lives and works in Minneapolis, preaching at a great metropolitan church, weekly.

Members of that church and others who’ve read Desiring God or heard his many online sermons would agree that he genuinely cares about doing good. A Boy-Scout hero. His only weakness? Many kinds of Kryptonite, such as too-frequent Twittering and TV-watching. We can all identify.

Yes, as with the Last Son of Krypton, some people think Piper is too serious about his job. But confronting evil, not to mention superficiality in the Church, is serious business. Besides, at the right moment he’s just as quick with a quip as any of the “flightier” heroes. Catch him in civilian mode: quirky as Clark Kent, with a contagious grin. All that’s missing is the eyeglass-shove.

Fighting for truth, justice and Christian Hedonism, in a world that so needs all three — that’s Pastor Piper. You’ll believe a man can cry.

Batman — John MacArthur

The Batman

Some may question his methods. Some may even call him too serious. But you can’t question his almost cheerful commitment to rid Christianity of bad teaching. That’s John MacArthur, author, dark knight of Gotham City (Los Angeles) and pastor at his own Batcave, Grace Community Church.

Possessing no superpowers, Johnny-Mac (his alter-ego) is still a man of stealth, strength and many other talents. When he’s not writing books about holy living or particular religious crimes against truth, he’s applying his detective skills to Scriptural study and finding forensic evidence from the worst abuses of the Bible. Supervillains such as The Joelker (Joel Osteen) may try their doctrinal crimes, but one pellet of Bat-prosperity-preacher repellant makes them flee.

He may be dark and brooding, and even sometimes work against other spiritual superheroes. He and Superman (John Piper) may have some disagreements, but they’re on the same side. However, grittier heroes like Wolverine (Mark Driscoll) definitely get on Bats’ nocturnal nerves.
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(Continued from Christian myths, part 1: Cautions before busting and Christian myths, part 2: To bust or not to bust.)

What do you do if someone says music with a beat is evil? Or that anything except music with a beat is evil? What if you hear someone quote a verse and interpret it in a way that you know isn’t what the verse means at all? Or maybe a Christian friend keeps telling you (I hope gently) that you’re views are against the Bible. Is it always wrong to bring this up? Divisive? Unloving?¹

What I’ve found is that sometimes it can be, if love is not the main motive. Yet love doesn’t automatically mean you look past lies. Scripture presents both sides: love, and uphold truth.

As promised, to end this little series: three reasons, Biblically based, to bust Christian myths.

1. Much of Scripture specifically refutes wrong beliefs with the truth.

This is especially true in the epistles. With few exceptions (Romans, Philippians), most of them were written in direct response to falsities. They didn’t just write the truth and ignore the lies.

Paul penned Galatians because they were dealing with Jewish legalistic leaders, the Judaizers, who sought to add to the Gospel with new rules and regulations.

The Corinthian church got Paul’s scorchers (especially 1 Corinthians) because they were compromising with culture and buying into false beliefs about the body.

Jude’s short book would have been written only about what Christians had in common — salvation (verse 3) — but he switched and wrote about lies.

I could even suggest that God allowed humans to sin so that His perfection would be magnified even more. Though Scripture doesn’t say this exactly, I’m guessing that in the New Earth we’ll find the truth (if we ever do) is close to that, anyway. At the very least I can say this: for me, learning to debunk the lies makes the truth, and the God of truth, seem even more glorious.

2. We must know more about how to pick out Christian lies in our own lives.

Any Christian’s growth to be more like God comes from God. Yet we don’t just sit there like fatalists and wait for this to happen. The Bible still encourages us to try, though we know it is actually God working in us (Philippians 2: 12-13). God works His will through what we do.

Understanding about spiritual truth also comes from the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2: 14-15). Yet we’re still encouraged to fight for it. Paul’s encouragement to Timothy does say not to argue about mere words, and avoid “irreverent babble.” But the apostle also says to him, rightly handle the word of truth (1 Timothy 2: 14-16)! ² The apostle’s advice to him surely applies not just to young Christian pastors, for we find similar admonitions to all believers. Avoiding “irreverent babble,” including false doctrines, and seeking the truth takes action — action God enables.

Have you seen what I’ve come to see — that many Christians are very capable of knowing, receiving and loving God’s truth, even while carrying on in beliefs that are contradictory? Might it be God’s grace that enables them not to see the contradiction and be mostly okay anyway?

But it might also be God’s grace that brings a caring friend, a firm correction from a pastor, a well-placed book, or a web-article that happens by, to show what Scripture really says.

Sometimes it takes a direct word about a specific belief to show how it doesn’t match the Bible.
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(Continued from Christian myths, part 1: Cautions before busting.)

On Monday afternoon I came home from work, and about tore out several of my personal hairs.

It was because of my wife. Yet let me quickly say I was not being mean; my frustration wasn’t because of anything she said. It was because of a Friday Wretched Radio broadcast that she played for me.

“Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

A woman called in to this Christian talk-radio program, hosted by Todd Friel. She didn’t pick much on Todd, but on one of his friends, a guy named Justin Peters. This teacher/speaker has a ministry particularly geared toward pointing out the wrong teachings and heresies of “Word Faith” leaders, such as Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn and (everyone’s favorite) Joel Osteen. A victim of mild cerebral palsy, Peters’ purpose is to show video clips of the “prosperity” preachers at churches, then carefully, Biblically explain why their teachings are anti-Biblical.

Well, this myth-busting of people who had made Such a Difference in this dear lady’s life didn’t sit well with her. She started off by condemning Peters for being so mean and for condemning other Christians … uh, yeah. Think about that last sentence from a logical-fallacy perspective. Todd brought up that little inconsistency, very graciously yet clearly.

Bing went one hair from my head.

Then she went on into general admonitions that Peters should be more “loving.”

Boink. Bing. Out went a few more hairs, along with a howl — loving, but lamenting.

Toward the last, the woman even brought up the “judge not lest ye be judged” notion. By that point she was just hurling clichés, leading by her own feelings, arguing from emotions, not a lot of Biblically informed thought. And I had pulled out at least a few more clumps of hair.

Finally she parted with a gushing blessing on Todd Friel, but without willingness to see her inconsistencies or even lack of concern for those who have been deceived by false teachers.

Even if God had worked through the false teachers to convey some truth to her, it didn’t matter that almost all of what they said otherwise was heresy. All that seemed to matter to her was her own experience. So regretfully classic. “Bless her heart.”

What would she say if she met the young man I heard interviewed, who had been “healed” by Benny Hinn yet was still partially blind?

What about a man who has worked for years to honor God and provide for his family, yet doesn’t have enough “faith” to get a ministry empire like Joel Osteen?

What if she had bought steak from a grocery and had no problems herself — would it matter much to her if almost all the other packages were putrid and gave people salmonella poisoning?

Please, before moving on to this post, pray for this woman — and for many like her! Such persons, even if they are true Christians, have adopted the belief that it’s almost always wrong (except for them) to myth-bust other Christians, even directly and in public. It will hurt people.

You have met them. Maybe you are one of them yourself — or maybe just a little.

Either way, I hope you’ll read the rest with a spirit of Christ-honoring open-mindedness. If this is the case, might you for a moment dismiss whatever experiences you’ve had with abuses of Christian myth-busting, or God using a particular teacher for you despite his un-Biblical beliefs, and consider: is myth-busting, when done right, Biblical? ¹

Starting on Saturday, I’ll list at least three reasons why it is.

Maybe you can think of a few more reasons. Or maybe you’ll think of rebuttals.² Regardless, please post your thoughts. “Discernment” can be done wrong, that’s for sure! Yet done right, with love and Biblical balance, busting Christian myths honors God and points people toward His truth and His love — and most of all, His glory.

(Continued from Camels and needles, the Kingdom and peoples, part 1.)

Other verses truly are about how the love of possessions can lead to sin (1 Timothy 6:10). To learn that lesson, we can refer to those passages. But Mark 10 is not about that.

Did the disciples think like a lot of us do: that of course, the money of the rich gets in the way of true goodness and spiritual concerns? If they did, why were they “exceedingly astonished”? Instead they would have nodded their heads, like we often do. Yes, that ugly Donald Trump, living it up, buying whole island chains during coffee breaks — he’ll never get into Heaven.

Rather, to Christ’s disciples, the “rich” was not our perception of a greedy uber-capitalist Bernie Madoff. To them, rich people were religious scholars, people who cared for the Earth, community pillars, recyclers, good people who gave to charity and helped the poor. Their wealth enabled them to be more spiritual than thou. Without the pressures of a 50-hour-a-week job, they had more time to be spiritual and donate to all the worthy causes.

Jesus took direct aim. In effect, He said that it would be easier for a literal camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for anyone uber-“good” to enter the Kingdom of God.
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Was there ever a “needle’s eye gate” in first-century Jerusalem?

Every once in a while you hear this anecdote tossed about in reference to Jesus’ famous metaphor in Matthew 19¹. It goes like this: in Jerusalem of Jesus’ day, there was a very small, very tight passage through which it was really hard to get a camel. So that is what Jesus was talking about.

The better commentaries and study-Bible notes² bust that myth: there was no such gate. The only sources for that idea are commentaries long after the first century. To say Jesus meant it was only pretty hard for the rich to get into the Kingdom, not impossible, rejects the true meaning.

But there is an even greater error Christians believe based on that verse.

Have you heard of it? Nowadays, with all the “social gospel,” Christianity-is-about-helping-your-neighbor-and-feeding-the-poor notions around, it’s even more prevalent.

Ye have heard that it was said …

The Bible says rich people’s money may keep them from the Kingdom.

AKA: Jesus opposes wealth.

Figure A:

Many fundamentalists seek to explain away the obvious hostility to wealth in the saying attributed to Jesus [. . .] Unfortunately for the fundamentalists, the concensus [sic] of New Testament scholars is that Matthew’s passage barring rich people from heaven means exactly what it says. It remains to be seen how many of them are willing to give up all their wealth in accordance with the ideals they claim to profess.³

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Here’s a tip on how to make counterfeit money, right here on a Christian site: Don’t put much effort into your bad bills — only enough to get a few past someone who’s not really looking.

Real crooks and counterfeiters never do, anyway. Instead of painstakingly making fake versions of a real bill, they put little manpower into their designs. But it makes sense. After all, they only need their bills to pass a casual inspection. If someone familiar with a real bill’s facets stares hard, the jig is up.

That’s according to blogger Tim Challies. A while ago for some research, he naturally went to the best place to learn about doctrinal discernment: a local bank. Christians should be glad he did. It gives more truth to that usual “study truth so you’ll know the error instantly” argument.

But I wonder how many Christians, even those who have gotten all those email forwards¹ about real/counterfeit money and discernment, wind up making some errors even when it comes to the business of finding errors. While starting a site about debunking Christian myths, it’s worth remembering that!

Three potential side effects of busting Christian myths come to mind:

1. We don’t even bother to look for errors.

Call me crazy, but somehow I get the notion that many Christians out there still have this take on things, even in our modern 21st-century society.

Let’s say a Secret Service agent trainee sits in that room full of cash all day long, staring at the bills and figuring out what’s right about them, and feeling really good about it. Yet when the time comes to get out there and discern fake cash, the trainee would rather stay in the room, fondle the bills, figure out what’s right about them, and keep feeling really good about it.

Yes, we as trainees need to keep up the training. We never finish studying and familiarizing ourselves with truth. But even then, we need to get out there and engage with others, trade in the commerce of ideas both inside and outside the Church, and keep sharp eyes for the lies.

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Of all the Christian myths out there, this one is surely among the big kahunas.

One might even argue it’s the biggest — at the very top of a top-ten list of Christian myths. In fact, if we can’t see its un-Biblical basis, we may not see the un-Biblical basis of anything.

The Bible has 774,746 words. This error comes from just two, ripped screaming from context.

Ye have heard that it was said …

The Bible says: “Judge not”!

AKA: The Bible says not to judge.

AKA: Christians are so judgmental.

Figure A:

A ranting fundie street preacher¹ is hollering in a secular university’s free-speech area. He catches the attention of some, the derision of most. One girl passing by think she’ll try a little drive-by shot. “The Bible says not to judge!” she blurts, and then goes on, very satisfied with her deep knowledge of Scripture.

Figure B:

Some Christian-spirituality book author, or sermon preacher, decries the image Christians have in the world. We’re too often seen as being judgmental, the leader proclaims. We need to be more loving. We need to win people with love. The Bible says, “Judge not.”

Figure C:

Christians: Since the bible says NOT to judge, why are you always judging Pagans?²

From Yahoo Answers, mid-October 2009 ³

What’s the truth in this?

Judging someone for being guilty of a sin must be done with care for at least three reasons:

1. Those who practice the same sins for which they condemn others risk God’s judgment; He is the ultimate judge (Romans 2: 1-2). That counts for sins against Him, and sins against each other — true judgment and repayment of personal wrongs is up to God, not us (Romans 12:19).
2. Sharing truth must be done with a spirit of humility and love (even if it’s tough love). All Christians have been guilty of the same kinds of evils as everyone else. The only difference is that God has saved His people from those consequences (1 Corinthians 6: 9-11).
3. Judgment should be done more in the Church than in the world, the Apostle Paul says strongly (1 Corinthians 5: 12-13). This is done to protect the boundaries of the Church, where immorality would defame the Name of Christ and must not be tolerated. To an extent, outsiders are expected to have immoral behavior. Still, that does not mean we must never point that out.

What’s the lie in this?

1. No judging allowed never ever is nowhere near what Scripture says. The whole Scripture and hundreds of separate passages assume the idea that judging is necessary. More on this below.
2. No judging allowed never ever is rarely people’s real meaning anyway. Few in practice truly mean Never judge anyone for any belief or action. Rather, it’s a card played for personal use: Don’t judge me, at least not what I’m saying now. Logically, that backfires and utterly fails.

But we needn’t even delve into all those other passages yet. Matthew 7 itself rebuts the wrong.

What’s the Word?

Two words: “Judge not”? Try reading the other 103: Christians must evaluate their own hearts before pointing out sins in others. Going from point A to point B without taking out the plank in your own eye makes little sense (note how Jesus’ hyperbole still translates to the present day). But Jesus never says always avoid point B, removing someone else’s speck. Instead, work on yourself first. “Then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

If somehow Jesus really had meant never to judge someone, by his actions or character, these verses would make no sense. To avoid giving holy things to mangy dogs or pearls to uncaring pigs, you must judge what/who is a dog or pig. Watching for false prophets requires judging.

Elsewhere, Christ Himself and epistle writers go into detail about how that looks.

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