by Tim | Mar 5, 2010 | God, Hell, Our Culture, The Church World, The Gospel, The Scriptures |
In my previous post, I started by stating that this “new” Christianity states that we should be cautious to judge things up to Scripture, since quite a few parts of Scripture appear flawed/misguided in their understandings of God. That’s why I commented to Melena that I chose not to use the words of Paul in my last post. I know that there are those who might dismiss what Paul has to say, because they see some of his teachings as contradictory to what Jesus taught. So I wanted instead to study Jesus’ own words as much as possible, since we hadn’t addressed the issue of this blog post yet. So what does this “better” Christianity have to say about Scripture and Jesus? ——————————————————————————— TRUST JESUS, NOT THE BIBLE The idea goes something like this: Jesus is the fullest revelation of God, not the Bible. Jesus is the word of God (John 1:14), not the Bible. The Old Testament tried its best to describe who God is, how He acts, what He wants from us. But it was written by people who didn’t have the knowledge of God given to us by Jesus, and therefore they attribute things to God that aren’t really in His character. And it’s not just them that do this. Even in the New Testament, various authors in their zeal of God over-reach themselves. People like Paul, for example, who is trying his best to understand what it means that Jesus has come in the flesh and how we should respond to that truth. But we also have something better than the writings of people before...
by Tim | Mar 1, 2010 | God, Hell, Our Culture, The Church World, The Gospel, The Scriptures |
Ok, so here’s the start of some blog posts that I promised a little while back to unpack some of the beliefs being presented today–claims for a “better” Christianity. Before I get into the first one about “not judging”, let me say that we must judge these “new” claims by Scripture. I believe it’s clear that they don’t stand up. But part of this “new” Christianity states that we should be cautious to judge such things up to Scripture, since quite a few parts of Scripture appear flawed/misguided in their understandings of God. In effect, these people are judging Scripture and find it to be lacking. This illustrates one of the points I will present in this blog that people who say “don’t judge,” create impossible criteria for what it means to “judge.” In fact, it is quite ironic that, when I was told that “my” view of Christianity (as if I’ve come up with something new) and my attitude was narrow-minded, judgmental, and arrogant, the very people telling me that I was judging were doing exactly that–and to an even greater degree. In other words, I did in fact “judge” their positions by stating that I completely disagree with their positions on matters that I believe are central to the Christian faith, and that I firmly believed they go completely against the whole of Scripture. I made judgments on their positions, for sure, but did not belittle them as persons in doing so. In return, those who would say that we shouldn’t judge responded by making judgments not only on my positions (which is completely fair and appropriate),...
by Tim | Feb 17, 2010 | God, My World, Worship |
I had a conversation with a friend this week about being expressive in worship. Like me, he has a problem with people who are expressive when worshiping, but throughout the week, they don’t live for Christ like they present themselves during worship on Sunday mornings. I struggle with this myself. I don’t want to be expressive on Sunday mornings, but then when I’m at my job Monday – Friday, or at the grocery store for that matter, I live as if I’m embarrassed to mention Jesus to co-workers, clients, or the checkout lady. How can I praise God so expressively at church, but refuse to share Christ with my next-door neighbor? How fake is that?! I’ve always felt like we can be so fake at church–we express ourselves one way there, while the rest of the week when we’re “real,” we’re too shy to proclaim Christ. But today it hit me–I’m not being fake at church. That’s really how I feel–that’s really who I am on the inside. I do want to proclaim how awesome Jesus is. It’s the rest of the week where I’m being fake. I’m hiding the real me from non-believers. How I desire to be real with everyone about how much Jesus means to me! I’m real at church–God, help me to be real at home, at work, and at...
by Tim | Feb 11, 2010 | God, Our Culture, The Church World, The Gospel, The Scriptures |
The biggest reason why I left Genesis, my former church, was that I believe that putting one’s faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to God, but I was told that this was narrow-minded, judgmental, and arrogant to believe and teach this. Of course, I had been teaching this to the youth, and was dismayed to learn that the church felt this was unnecessary and not beneficial to do so. Through this experience, my eyes have been opened to realize that churches like this really do exist out there. Sure, I’ve always known that, but I never thought it was so prevalent that I would actually be part of one. In addition, I discovered that the arguments given to me for why I was wrong for my beliefs would be rather persuasive to anyone who doesn’t read their Bible, which is very scary to me. Because statistics show (and people’s understanding of the Bible show) that most people who go to church don’t read their Bibles regularly. In the weeks that have followed my resignation, I’ve been looking hard at Scripture–and what I’ve found has amazed me. Of course, I knew that Scripture preaches that Jesus is the only way, etc. so that didn’t surprise me. But what has surprised and encouraged me is how powerful, alive, and transforming the gospel is. It’s like I’m experiencing it anew all over again. A re-genesis of sorts. But I lose sleep almost every night thinking about the people who remain at Genesis. Some of them have come to the conclusion that this issue is unimportant, and amounts to nothing more...
by Tim | Feb 4, 2010 | God, The Church World |
In the next few blogs, I will be discussing some of the issues that led to me leaving my previous church. Before I discuss these things, I want to make sure that my heart and spirit are not misunderstood. While I strongly disagree with the beliefs and values being taught there (and the lack of teaching as well), there is no bitterness or hostility that I hold toward anyone there. I think it’s important to remember that when we disagree on such things that we are able to do so without trying to hurt individuals personally, or try to attack them. This is hard to do when you have strong beliefs one way or the other. Yet, it is necessary. The Bible says that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood–so why should we make the other person our enemy? Even if the other person chooses to label us as enemies, he/she has no power over our own thinking. We can still love them and pray for them. Since I left my church over “theological issues,” it is obvious that I have strong feelings over these issues. Strong enough that I felt it was better to part ways with people that I love and miss. I understand how it would be easy for those I’ve left to take this action personally. I hope that one day, they will know that I never desired to leave such good friends, but that this decision was something I felt I needed to do, even at the risk of losing credibility in some people’s eyes. Before I left the church, I had a...
by Tim | Jan 26, 2010 | God, The Church World, The Gospel, The Scriptures |
In this post, I am going to approach this from the argument of reason only (not doctrines of innerancy of Scripture, or beliefs in the inspiration of Scriptures, etc.). Not that I reject those doctrines, but I think it would be fun to look at it from this viewpoint. What does a Christian have at his/her disposal to trust and follow? 1. Scripture 2. Oral tradition from the Catholic Church, which they claim came from the Apostles 3. Opinions of Christians down the centuries 4. Opinions of present-day Christians (i.e. pastors, scholars, etc.) 5. One’s own opinions I would much rather trust and follow what the Apostles/Scripture writers taught in their writings than any of the others on this list when they seem to disagree with Scripture. Why? Simply, the Scripture-writers were there at the beginning of the faith and warned us against others who would come after them and would deviate from their teachings. If you doubt the writers, how much more should you doubt any who follow if their teaching seems to disagree? I believe this is one of the reasons why the Jews had so much difficulty accepting Jesus. His coming and preaching made many of the commands in the Law seem trivial. The Jews refused to deviate from their Scriptures, simply because some man who came thousands of years later showed up. The only way they could entertain the idea of adjusting their view of Scripture is if that person had more authority than Scripture itself. That person would have to be greater than the prophets who wrote Scripture. If Jesus was not truly the...
