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WHO BLEEDS WHEN CHRISTIANS FIGHT?
#8
THE TERMINATOR OF TRUTH
If you’re not entirely sure what happens to the soul
when a person dies, what should the church do about that? Should someone
come over to your house and straighten you out? Let’s say you’re confused
about the timing of last-day events and the “secret rapture” and the millennium.
You’ve read — or tried to read, anyway — a couple of books on those subjects,
and you recently saw a television preacher who outlined the views of his
denomination . . . but you still have questions. And again I ask: should
your church send The Enforcer after you?
One of the biggest media successes in memory happened during the recent
Super Bowl between Tampa Bay and the Oakland Raiders. Millions of Americans
were tuned in, of course, and many of them were more interested in the
TV competition for “Best Commercial.” And the favorite of many fans was
a spot from Reebok featuring a actor named Lester Speight. Six foot seven,
330 pounds, and this football player, wearing #56, was hired by some nameless
company to enforce the code. If you were using your company laptop to
play solitaire, BOOM! Terry Tate, the Office Linebacker, flattened you
with a tackle. If you didn’t get back from lunch in exactly 30 minutes,
BOOM! Terry came flying through the air, ready to clothesline you into
submission. If your fax didn’t have a cover sheet on it, #56 would tear
down the hallway, jump across the line of scrimmage, and BOOM! “How many
times do I have to tell you!” BOOM! And for 60 bone-crunching seconds,
#56 was just hurtling across your screen, with agonizing “thumps” as he
tackled the poor people who made little mistakes here and there.
Well, Reebok really scored a touchdown with the ad, and some viewers were
searching the Internet afterward, wondering: “Who is this guy . . . and
can I hire him to enforce discipline at my company?” Or church, some pastors
must be wondering. A Micky Pant, Reebok’s chief marketing officer, let
it be known that Mr. Speight’s tackles were absolutely real. “He hit me
so hard I was bleeding,” he confessed.
The marvelous magazine for pastors, Leadership, apparently found a relative
of Cousin Lester’s, and in a Dennis Fletcher cartoon an enormous drill
instructor-type of guy, butch haircut, square chin, no-nonsense clip-on
tie, has a fragile Christian by the neck, lifting him two feet off the
ground while other believers tremble and quake in the background. And
the Terminator — I mean, Sunday School teacher — is bellowing at the guy:
“Sixty-ONE?! Sixty-ONE?! What do you mean, there’s sixty-ONE books in
the Bible?! Drop and give me twenty!”
And the caption reads: “It quickly became clear that
retired General George ‘No Surrender’ Summers was the wrong choice to
teach the new members class.”
Well, friend, all of this is fun-and-games . . . until it actually happens
to you. Have you ever been tackled over truth? Forced to run 50 laps because
of your faith? If you’re listening in your car right now, and YOU erroneously
think there are just 61 books in the Bible instead of 66 — which every
good Christian in the world obviously knows . . . I mean, come ON, people
— should I radio ahead and have the CHP (that’s the Christian Highway
Patrol) pull you over at the next intersection and beat the heresy out
of you?
It appears that in the early Christian church, both Larry Speight and
General George might have been regular attendees along with Paul, Silas,
Barnabas, and Timothy. Because people were fighting about doctrine then
too. But as we study what Paul writes about “The Enforcer” and people
who try to bludgeon others into their way of believing, we do find that
the football field does have two end zones to it. Here’s Titus chapter
three:
“But avoid . . . quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable
and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time.
After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man
is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”
So division over Bible teachings is a dangerous and
wrong thing to indulge in. If someone is endlessly tackling the saints
in the foyer of the church, or coming to prayer meeting wearing a helmet,
Paul seems to be suggesting that they be cut from the team.
But let’s hear essentially the same warning, now from the epistle of First
Timothy. Notice the lead-in this time:
“If anyone teaches false doctrine and does not agree to the sound instruction
of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands
nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about
words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and
constant friction between men of corrupt mind.”
On the one hand, Paul appears to be telling us that
fighting about church teachings is a bad thing. On the other hand, adhering
to FALSE teachings, and body-checking people from that side of the field
. . . for sure is wrong. So truth is important — but controversy over
truth is to be avoided. But how can we know if we are defending truth?
After all, everybody is convinced that the way they see things IS truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but. Otherwise we’d change our views. So
it seems to ring a bit hollow when Paul tells us: “Don’t fight about what
truth is. And I know — so I’ll tell you what truth is.”
Let me ask you this: are there truths that are necessary? From a Christian
perspective? And the answer is yes. Paul plainly tells us that the doctrine
of the Resurrection is absolutely vital. We must have it. The entire fabric
of the faith disintegrates if we don’t believe in the bodily resurrection
of Jesus Christ on Sunday morning, and also in the resurrection of God’s
redeemed saints at the end of the age. Christian everywhere do — and must
— believe in the atoning blood of Jesus, in the doctrine of grace, in
the sovereignty of God, in the reality that Jesus is THE way to salvation.
How, then, should we handle disagreements and discussions over these things?
Well, First Peter gives us a few words about it:
“Live in harmony; be sympathetic; love as brothers. be compassionate;
humble.”
And yet, as Paul indicates, there are some core doctrines
that must be defended. There are some pillars where, if a dissenter wants
to endlessly argue against the Body of Christ, he or she eventually needs
to be escorted from the Super Bowl gridiron. “Warn him once, warn him
twice,” Paul advises, and then that’s it.
There was an editorial of some controversy in my own denomination’s paper
not so long ago, entitled “The Pythagoras Factor — Again,” by Clifford
Goldstein. And he makes the observation that rank-and-file believers of
a church have a right to expect that the pastors and the college professors
in that church system hold to and support the core pillars of the faith.
True, there must be academic freedom; there must be scholastic inquiry
and spiritual humility as the quest for biblical knowledge continues.
But it’s inappropriate, Goldstein writes, for a fictional dad named “George”
to send his kid off to this Christian college, pay x dollars in tuition,
and then later discover that teachers at the school, who inwardly don’t
hold to the teachings of the denomination, have quietly subverted the
educational process.
It’s a difficult issue, and there’s no wonder the Christian faith has
now had 2,000 years with more tackles than touchdowns. In the preface
to his classic book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis conceded that he tried
to write only about the “really important” elements of the faith, and
immediately acknowledged that the question of “what is really important”
was one of the main things people don’t agree on.
Much later, in an essay entitled Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism,
he writes, almost with some anger, about priests and preachers who continue
to wear the robe, who continue to draw a paycheck from the diocese, but
who no longer believe the core tenets of Christianity.
“Once the layman was anxious to hide the fact,” he writes, “that he believed
so much less than the Vicar: he now tends to hide the fact that he believes
so much more.” And what a line this is: “Missionary to the priests of
one’s own church is an embarrassing role.”
Well, friend, what does it mean for you and me, the
people in the pew, the faithful friends in our radio circle? I think it
means just this: a gentle AND inquiring spirit. We need both. Passion
and patience. Obviously, you wouldn’t spend 15 minutes of your Wednesday
here with us if you weren’t trying to seek new light. I appreciate that
so much; we all do. What a wonderful thing to be in the Word, to read
the great books of the faith, to feed at the fountain of collective Christian
wisdom.
But then when we go out onto the playing field, let’s remember that we’re
not playing tackle football. I can guarantee you I’ve said some things
here on this program that you probably didn’t agree with. If you did agree,
you’d be sitting next to me in church every single week already. So we
have this dialogue. Please don’t come here to Simi Valley and tackle me.
Instead, pray for me and write to me and send along a gentle but forthright
e-mail with your thoughts. And when you share with your neighbor what
God impresses you is important, don’t wear shoulder pads. Maybe try some
knee pads instead.
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