It’s happened again — an “emergent” professing Christian on his Facebook profile posts a note making imbalanced claims, and I start offering responses. Others then add more responses, and they seem not to get anywhere with the post-writer or others sharing his views.

They tend to say things like “Christians seek both religious and political power and prestige,” without qualifier, as if seeking religious and political power is the only problem in the professing Church. Others like me say back that the Church has many problems, resulting from worse lack of belief in the Gospel. We get ignored in favor of more trendy slams against the Church, and on and on it goes, the great circle of internet time-wasting life. It’s quite a kick.

Here’s one sample, edited only slightly.

Counting up the stereotypes in your recent comment [. . .] I think you’ve been reading too many [George] Barna surveys without critically evaluating the kinds of people surveyed or the language used to qualify real “Christians.” (However, I’m surprised you also didn’t mention “Christians’ divorce rate is the same as the world”! )

Are all these supposed greedy-power-hungry-warmongering folks true Biblical *Christians* or merely professing ones?

(Even if they are Christians, should we condemn them for surface symptoms, or seek to understand and correct the roots of these errors: wrong views of Christ and the Gospel?)

Anyway, I know plenty of Christians who are not all about Stuff. They give their lives and resources for others. Plenty of popular Christian leaders, such as John Piper, directly oppose the idea of Christianity-and-the-”American-dream.” If you truly haven’t seen them, you need to get out more.

I don’t need to remind you of Jesus’ infamous (and sobering) reminder later on in Matthew 7: 21-23 that not everyone who calls Him Lord will enter His Kingdom.

“Jesus told us not to judge”? Actually, He cautioned against hypocritical judgment.¹ Then He goes on to warn of false teachers that come in among the flock like wolves. You yourself are doing quite a lot of judgment in your comment. So am I, and judging in itself is okay, as long as we strive to judge without hypocrisy and with Christ-honoring love.

I think you already believe this. Still, I hear a lot of Christians being careless with their language. “Jesus told us not to judge” is a wrong statement that reinforces wrong views.

No, Christians are not perfect and have a lot to learn. Who would say otherwise? Yet looking to Him and the Gospel, not bemoaning problems, is the solution. Pulpit-pounders of previous generations (and some survivors today) decry the lack of moral behavior in the Church, but stop there.

Let’s not do that. Let’s point to Christ Himself and His Word, His Truth, His love for us and our resultant love for Him, our gratitude for Him saving us, as the basis for better living. That is the only way to wash the Bride’s garments cleaner: looking to its Groom and loving Him before than ever.

Naturally, this resulted in several Prayers of Salvation right there in the Facebook discussion.²

Well, maybe next time I’ll have this next quote on standby — thanks to my re-reading a little book by Randy Alcorn called The Grace and Truth Paradox. It’s the best summary I’ve seen so far by a popular yet Biblically based Christian author, about how Jesus is both grace and truth — and therefore, His people should be too.

Grace without truth is no longer grace, Alcorn writes in this little 90-page hardback. Without truth, “grace” turns into harmful, dangerous “tolerance,” a pathetic substitute.

And truth without grace ceases to be truth, he adds. “Truth” alone becomes self-righteousness.

That could summarize the entire book, which a trained reader could likely start and finish inside one afternoon. Thus a lengthy review might be half the length of the actual book! Yet I thought I’d post this brief excerpt, specifically addressing how the Christian grace/truth living affects how we perceive modern political platforms. Christians cannot claim a single party or cause without qualification, Alcorn says — something I wish “emergents” and others would remember.

Political Grace and Truth

Often, conservatives emphasize truth (morals), and liberals emphasize grace (compassion). Conservatives want to conserve what’s right; liberals want to liberate from what’s wrong.

Liberals’ commitment to fighting racism in the sixties was commendable. But sometimes liberals fight against true standards, life the beliefs that abortion, fornication, adultery, and homosexual behavior are wrong. They embrace tolerance as a grace substitute. Liberal Christians often end up being liberals first, Christians second.

Conservatives want to restore lost values. They want to go back to the days when prayer was allowed in schools. But they forget that the same schools that allowed prayer didn’t allow black children! By trying to conserve so many things—even things that were clearly wrong—conservative Christians have sometimes been conservatives first, Christians second.

Why should we have to choose between conservatism’s emphasis on truth and liberalism’s emphasis on grace? Why can’t we oppose injustice to minorities and to the unborn? Why can’t we oppose greedy ruination of the environment and anti-industry New Age environmentalism? Why can’t we affirm the biblical right to the ownership of property and emphasize God’s call to voluntarily share wealth with the needy? Why can’t we uphold God’s condemnation of sexual immorality, including homosexual practices, and reach out in love and compassion to those trapped in destructive lifestyles and dying from AIDS?

We cannot do these things if we are first and foremost either liberals or conservatives. We can do these things only if we are first and foremost follower of Christ, who is full of grace and truth.

Until this article by Answers in Genesis staffer Dr. Georgia Purdom, I didn’t know some Christians were trying to prove God’s existence (or character) from a protein molecule shape. Here it is, apparently called laminin.

But I am a bit confused as to how a photo of a laminin protein can be such a boon to faith as some Christians say it has been to them. Help me out here? And I don’t want to be rude, but I have a few questions, and I’m sure they’ll be echoed by others who also don’t quite get it.¹

1. Is it that all galaxies or protein molecules contain cross shapes?

2. If not, might other galaxies or proteins seem to have other shapes instead? Perhaps even shapes in reminiscent of other religious icons, such as a Star of David or the Islamic Crescent? Perhaps someone with more of a life-sciences background could fill us in on this.

3. Could therefore someone of another religion use the same argument? Would it be valid for their point? If not, should we as Christians use the same line of reasoning? Does Scripture encourage us to do so?

4. Is this much different from people thinking they’ve seen Jesus, the Virgin Mary or a saint in shrubbery, and take it as a sign of blessing?

5. Do Christians really “need” such signs? Should we bring them up as proof that God’s testimony of common grace and Creator is evident in creation? Does this jibe with Christians’ claims to believe the written Word as God’s final and uttermost specific revelation to people?

Cross shapes, whether in molecules or stripped-off bark of a tree, can remind us of Jesus. But I wouldn’t use it as a basis for supposed proof of His Word or for God being our Creator.

In her excellent and recent Answers in Genesis article, Dr. Georgia Purdom kindly and with Biblical basis explores the laminin protein and its seeming cross shape. She starts off with a mention of evangelist Louie Giglio, who with good intentions relates the shape of laminin to the truth of Colossians 1:17.²

While I appreciate Mr. Giglio’s passion for the Word, I would suggest that this type of argument is not a good one to use. [. . .] The main problem with this type of argument is that it appears that something outside of Scripture (in this case, laminin) is vital to know the truthfulness of a biblical truth. Laminin is used to prove a biblical truth. However, we should never use our fallible, finite understanding of the world to judge the infallible Word of God. What we observe in the world can certainly be used to confirm God’s Word (and it does), but our finite observations are not in a position to evaluate the infinite things of God. Only if we start with the Bible as our ultimate standard can we have a worldview that is rational and makes sense of the evidence. [. . .]

The structure of laminin was not made popular until 2008, yet I have no doubt that many Christians before that time have trusted the truth presented in Colossians 1:17 because it is God’s Word. Would Colossians 1:17 be any less true if laminin were not in the shape of a cross? No. If five years from now we discover that the laminin protein actually has a different shape (in fact, some electron micrographs of the protein do not resemble a cross at all, see here, p. 149), would that change the truth found in Colossians 1:17? No, because our belief in the truthfulness that Christ holds all things together should start and end with God’s Word alone!
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When I was younger and a snarkier Christian, I rewrote the first chapter of Genesis. Unlike some, I wasn’t trying to remove the six-day creation parts. Instead I rewrote it the way an evolutionist might, in retelling his account(s) of the origin of the world.¹ This was called the L.E.F.T. Bible, the Liberal Evolutionists’ Favored Translation.

But I think Marvin Olasky did a much better job.

On March 11 last month, he debated “social gospel” activist Jim Wallis, who seeks Biblical and Christian justification for liberal welfare and wealth-distribution policies. Earlier that afternoon, Olasky has given a lecture about Christian responses to poverty and affluence. The afternoon is for academics, Olasky said. He wanted to start his introduction to the debate with a little snark.

In his hotel, considering a Gideons Bible in the drawer, he wondered: how would a “progressive Christian” version, such as Wallis’s Sojourners organization, translate three famous parables?

First, from Luke 10:

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. The stripped him of his clothes, they beat him and they went away, leaving him half-dead.

But a Samaritan came to where the man was, and was outraged that some people were so poor that they were forced to steal clothes. He returned to Jerusalem, and using rhetorical brilliance to overcome prejudice against his ethnic group, he convinced the Sanhedrin to pass the Good-Looking Samaritan Act, which gave a new suit of clothes to every disadvantaged youth who might otherwise turn to crime along the Jerusalem-Jericho highway. And the Act also erected a monument at the spot where the robbery victim had died.

What about Acts 3?
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Christians’ questionable (or just-plain-wrong) beliefs about things such as spiritual warfare take a very long time to — ha ha, exorcise. ¹

Going over all the possible assumptions Christians have about how demons operate would take a while. In some cases, I’m thinking Christians need to practice love and firmness, coupled with careful emphasis on God’s power and His Spirit within Christians. That’s a more extensive process than, say, pointing to one Scripture as proof against a wrong idea about Satan and his fallen angels.

But let’s look into just one questionable idea. It crumbles simply by reading verses before and after a common proof text.

Ye have heard that it was said …

“We need to come against that spirit (or evil spirit, demon, power) and bind him (or it).”

AKA: “Lord, we just pray that Satan would be bound …”

Or even a prayer not directed to God: “Satan, we bind you!”

But Matthew 18:18:18 has nothing to do with demons. This is a bit dangerous to say, in part because some Christians will assume the one saying it doesn’t believe Satan or demons are real and terrible.² So for now, let’s just bypass the whole “spiritual warfare” issue and look at the verse by itself.

The verse isn’t talking about spiritual warfare or demons. They’re not mentioned here. Maybe they’re in the surrounded verses — the context of what Jesus is saying to His disciples. That usually clears things up.

Wait. The paragraph here is actually not about fighting demons at all. It’s about the church’s role in personal conflicts!

So the “binding” isn’t of the Devil or demons at all. Instead, Jesus is talking about church leaders’ “binding” decisions on conflicts between church members.

Maybe the Bible elsewhere encourages Christians to “bind” Satan, or ask God to bind him.³ But it’s not here.

Some things in Scripture are unclear and require deep contemplation to see them more clearly. This isn’t one of them.

Real warfare

Consider the time and effort some well-meaning and zealous Christians give to battling demons directly. But compared with that, direct demon-fighting is topic that is mentioned almost in passing throughout the New Testament.

Yes, the Devil and his demons are real, they are dangerous, but they are at best bit players. Christian should pray to Christ, never direct prayers or commands against Satan.⁴ “Binding and rebuking” is about church discipline and authority, not bossing fallen angels or fighting temptation. And the famous “full armor of God” portrayal in Ephesians 6 shows us that spiritual warfare is primarily about learning and living the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and battling false doctrines that infect our minds, hearts and lives.

So here are three spiritual warfare “formulas” for casting out questionable assumptions about spiritual warfare.

a. Number of Scriptures teaching this > number of Scriptures about demons.

c. Christians possessed or controlled by demons = x/0.

Directions to an “emergent” church?

The other day I dared to use the hashtag #T4G2010 in a Tweet although I was not, technically, at the Together for the Gospel conference myself.

This may be the only Tweet from a *non*-attender with hashtag #T4G2010 – the Together for the Gospel conference. I look forward to the MP3s!

More on those MP3s in a moment. Before looking into any of the actual messages by John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, Al Mohler and others, behold some true depth. This comes on April 14 from at least two men who actually did attend T4G, perhaps armed with ESV Study Bibles and, evident from this exchange, internet-enabled phones.

jaredrankin: There is a dude knitting two rows in front of me. No joke. #T4G2010

Moments later:

IkeRadio: Dude back off I was on a deadline w/ my afghan RT @jaredrankin: There is a dude knitting two rows in front of me. No joke. #T4G2010

Ha ha! These men are among those directing our churches.

And seriously, God bless them. They got supreme, Christ-centered teaching this week. And now, without having to attend the conference, spend money, stay in hotels, miss work or school, anything else, so can any of us. They have almost all the MP3s up, as I’m about to hit the publish button.¹

Already I’ve listened to Al Mohler talk about analyzing doctrinal disasters in the Church to figure out how people start adjusting the Gospel. And before that, Mark Dever opened the conference with his message on The Church is the Gospel Made Visible. One highlighted quote from Dever’s message:

“In our generation, we treat casualness as if it’s the height of intimacy.” But encountering the transcendent God is much more. – Mark Dever

(Peels back the lid of a big can-o’-worms, and watches more worms fall out and start slithering across the floor, spewing slime …)

Surely it’s time to talk about the much-ballyhooed issue of evangelical megachurch leader and author Rick Warren, being invited by John Piper to speak at the 2010 Desiring God conference.

For Christians who want to speak the truth in love, balancing grace and truth the way Jesus did¹, Warren is a tricky case. Yes, he does a lot of the “unity, unity” stuff,², but he does seem to truly believe the Gospel. There was a lot of talk when Piper said he had checked out Rick Warren, saying he’s sure Warren is a truly deep guy who believes in repentance and faith and adheres to strong Christian orthodoxy.

I’ve no cause to doubt that. But does Warren preach what he practices?

A while ago I read some of Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life³, and I found very shallow. Christians who were eating it up as “deep” made me sad. (It was like those who said they read The Da Vinci Code and said they didn’t buy all the heresy stuff, but that it was “a great story”!)

But even for “baby” Christians, oughtn’t they hear more along the lines of Warren’s correct and famous “It’s not about you” statement at the front? Instead, the rest of the book ended up being all about you after all: God and the church as a means to your Purpose-Driven™-ness.

Plot hole

Let’s imagine a famous preacher who’s built a church, written books and so on. He actually does get almost everything right about the Gospel: even the repentance-and-faith parts. He doesn’t minimize sin. He dares to mention Hell and manages to do so lovingly.

But — what if he rarely if ever mentions the hope of Heaven, and much less the promised New Earth?

Maybe it’s not intentional. Maybe I as this hypothetical famous preacher simply assume it’s not part of his unique presentation of the message. Maybe he believes people will pick up that part elsewhere. And it’s true that technically, one can be saved without being taught about the hope of Heaven, and the New Earth, and how they fit into Christ’s eternal plan to redeem His saints and His creation as well.

But why keep skipping over that part? It’s important! And especially if he’s all famous and leaderly, people will follow his example and base their preaching and programs on the leaders, likely also ignoring that part of the truth!

That’s similar to the issue with Warren: only with him, it’s not that he doesn’t emphasize Heaven.⁴ The worse problem is Warren doesn’t talk about the seriousness of sin and how it’s an offense to God. Without comprehending that truth on a heart level, more people will be filling churches, thinking themselves saved because they “asked Jesus into their hearts,” but did not repent of sin.
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We’re doing this for the sake of the Gospel, the man happened to mention to me during my phone interview.

Mentions of the Gospel like that often make me curious. The story I was writing focused on local charity efforts, but a brief swerve-aside seemed appropriate.

So I asked him: By the way, off the record and just because I’m wondering — what do you believe the Gospel is?

His response came easily, though perhaps he was a bit surprised. My transcription: “It is to introduce to people and teach them that the way to salvation is through Jesus Christ. … We’re all sinners, and there’s no way to be a perfect, good person.” He went on to say (my paraphrase): This is where we want to be careful. Other religions say you can be better, but the only way to be saved from your sin is to ask forgiveness and believe in Jesus Christ.

Thank God for him. That description covers the basics, and that’s saying a lot because of the latest (though not new) Gospel confusion. What do you think?

Defining the Gospel is a hot topic of the ages, and more specifically the focus of the current Together for the Gospel conference. Speakers ranging from C.J. Mahaney (the more-“charismatic” Sovereign Grace Ministries) to Al Mohler (president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) started speaking yesterday on the topic of “The Unadjusted Gospel.” Though of course I didn’t attend myself, I know several people who are attending. And I look forward to the conference’s free MP3s.

Meanwhile, here are a few paragraphs from R.C. Sproul (apparently from his message yesterday, and found here) about the Gospel. Though I’ve no wish to adjust the Gospel, or his wording, I have only adjusted the paragraphs for readability:

What Is the Gospel?
from R.C. Sproul

There is no greater message to be heard than that which we call the Gospel. But as important as that is, it is often given to massive distortions or over simplifications.

People think they’re preaching the Gospel to you when they tell you, ‘you can have a purpose to your life’, or that ‘you can have meaning to your life’, or that ‘you can have a personal relationship with Jesus.’

All of those things are true, and they’re all important, but they don’t get to the heart of the Gospel.

The Gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness – or lack of it – or the righteousness of another.

The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself.

But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.

The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn’t concerned to protect His own integrity. He’s a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead – so that Christ died for us, He was raised for our justification.

So the Gospel is something objective. It is the message of who Jesus is and what He did.

And it also has a subjective dimension. How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith – and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him – and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.

Which is the most popular error today:

1. Saying the Song of Solomon¹ is only allegorical?

2. Going crazy with sermons about sex based on the book, and with really annoying and juvenile ads about the sermon series that tend to offend even non-Christians?²

I’m not sure which is more prevalent; however, I do know I hear more of the latter extreme.

But recently I heard another presentation of the former view: The Song of Solomon is clearly allegory.

And a related thing Christians often say is something like: I am the bride of Christ.
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(Let’s see how a semi-daily schedule works for this site …)

She may not have meant it this way, but an online forum netizen I know recently said, without disclaimer:

When we praise God, we should lift up our hands to Him.

Always? Is this “required”? It’s certainly possible for a believer to give true worship to God with hands held elsewhere.

From my brief response:

For now I’m dodging the raising-of-hands issue — that is, I won’t write a giant essay about it or something. However, here are a few points, and I think others have already been making some of them:

1) One must not have to raise hands to worship.
2) Raising hands in worship can be okay.
3) What is not okay is automatically looking down on someone who raises hands in worship, or looking down on someone who doesn’t.
4) Worship should encompass everything a Christian does (Colossians 3:23).
5) Raising hands in worship can unfortunately be abused to draw attention to one’s self — just like anything a Christian uses in worship (ministry, art, music, writing, internet debate!). What matters is one’s heart. But any discussion of the virtues of raising hands, its Biblical precedent, and that sort of thing, should also include the risks associated with it — and the aforementioned other ways of worshiping God.
6) I’m married to a girl who would love to be able to worship God again with tambourines and even Messianic Jewish dance. However, I am not myself naturally expressive, and yet can worship God just as much as anyone who is more external. I hope I’m worshiping God now, even while not saying a thing, but only thinking as I write these words, hoping He uses them for His glory.

And while I know some raise (ha ha!) the objection that if we’re worshiping, it doesn’t matter what people think around us … yes, it does.

If you’re worshiping by yourself, it may not matter as much what “style” you have, more-charismatic or otherwise.

Yet believers worshiping together must be loving and sensitive to others. If this were not necessary, Paul would not have written so much, especially in 1 Corinthians 12-14, about the need to worship with different spiritual gifts “decently and in order”¹

Christians can and should worship by themselves. Yet worship with other believers bring many more needs into play. And applying the Romans 14 principles of not wrongly offending “weaker brothers” would also mean we should be careful about what even our heartfelt expressions of worship might mean to those around us. Clearly, Paul thought this was true about tongues and other means of spiritual gift-practice.²

What do you think?