Wrangling About Words
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: The Uncomfortable Pastor

Sometimes I come to the point where I think:  I just have to sit down and write on this subject.  Maybe my mental hard drive is full, and I need to unload it somehow.  In this case it comes about because of Bible classes, conversations, and radio programs.  How’s that for a collection?

I just heard a program where the interviewee said that he never really joined the Catholic Church, he was just sort of born into it.  And that’s often the way it happens.  Of course, that never happens to evangelicals, does it?  I was born Methodist, and I’ll die Methodist.  I’m a Baptist, and this is how Baptists live.  Where does the average Christian fit?

On to another loose string....  If you want to start a fight in a church setting, mention the word “Calvinist.”  The arguments will immediately begin.  Is it Bible teaching when you teach Calvinism?  That’s a hot question.  Ok, is it Bible teaching when you teach Dispensationalism?  Now we are meddling for sure.  Is it Bible teaching when you teach a systematic theology instead of Bible?  That sounds like a silly question, but it’s not:  many scenarios are called biblical simply because someone at some point referenced the Bible.  Referencing the Bible is not intrinsically a faithful representation of the Bible’s own message.  Even cults reference the Bible.

I have a friend who grew up in the Catholic Church but certainly couldn’t be accused of being faithfully involved all his life.  He has also dabbled in other churches.  He is reading the Bible for the first time and from the beginning, and he says it’s affecting him and changing him.  Wow!

I have a friend who is Presbyterian who isn’t exactly confident regarding his heavenly status, but he says he believes in Christ as his Savior.  I enjoy talking to these guys.  I consider them friends.  I want to be there to help when help is needed but not get in the way of what God is doing in their lives.  I will answer their questions with God’s word but not hammer them to get a certain stereotypical response.

A class was very interesting as it surveyed a variety of salvation programs in the ‘church’ at large.  One of the salvation programs was evangelical.  The leader said that was ours.  He never said why, so I left with the impression that someone could say all the salvation programs were valid.  Why choose one over another?  You chose that one, I chose this one.  Is there any way to know?  One could compare them to what the Bible says, and that would reveal some to be heresy, but he didn’t want to do that; he specifically said he considered people tied to these other salvation programs to be saved.

Every time we begin to discuss this systematic theology or that, we are talking outside the realm of the Bible.  That is because a systematic theology is a human construct.  It is preposterous to think that any human construct can summarize and organize properly the mind of God!  It is preposterous to think that human logic can supply what the Bible does not in order to present a logical system.  A systematic theology may be useful in some ways, and I know seminaries thrive on that and will defend it into extinction, but extrapolated to the extreme each becomes absurd and heretical, simply because it thinks beyond God’s word.  There is something called biblical theology, and it is refreshing; it looks at the biblical data and organizes it without adding anything to it--the Bible provides its own context and parameters, even if it doesn’t match my mental organization.

2 Timothy 2:15 is a verse well-known:  it is the theme verse for AWANA clubs, but it was really written to guide the pastor.  We have not paid much attention to the previous verse which says, “Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers” (2 Tim. 2:14, NASB).  These areas I’m addressing fit with the topic of word-battles.  They are outside the Bible itself and are dangerous, even though they can be exhilarating!

From what I read in the Bible no names of denominations or systematic theologies will be obvious in the New Jerusalem.  There will be the names of the twelve apostles and of the twelve tribes of Israel.  Period.  But the emphasis will be on the glory of God and of the Lamb Who is present.  Couldn’t we promote some of that now?  I hope none of us who appear there will seem lost at first because the emphasis is on Christ!

I would like to see pastors and Bible teachers simply helping us in the  congregation understand the Bible better.  I don’t really care what theology you espouse, but tell what God has revealed to us through the prophets and apostles.  Then I will know that I am on solid ground when I believe and obey.