Paul's Passing Thoughts

I am often inspired to write articles as a result of conversations with Susan. She was sharing with me about an event that happened at a church she attended several years ago. The pastor, after getting word that he would be taking a one-way flight back to home base in the near future, announced to the congregation that God “told him” that He (God) wanted his son (the pastor’s son) to replace him as pastor at said church. Who would ever argue with God? And who could say that God didn’t tell him that? Therefore, I guess the coronation then commenced posthaste. How does stuff like this happen at church?

You understand if your a doctrine hound like myself because you see the indifference, and in many cases, outright disdain for doctrine among God’s people; “Oh, don’t talk to him, you may say something ‘theologically incorrect’”(snort, snort). But here is what many don’t understand: everybody on earth lives by a doctrine. Everybody that breaths. Atheism, for example, is a doctrine. Secondly, doctrine determines how you live; always, absolutely no exception. For instance, Nihilism is the “doctrine of nothing.” But yet, this was the doctrine embraced by the young man who recently tried to assassinate a US senator while murdering nine others. The same doctrine is also embraced by a contemporary heavy metal band and is the inspiration for much of the music they have written. However, Christian Nihilism generally takes on a softer tone except when confronted by Christian doctrines of various sorts, especially those that take effort to understand.

So, everybody lives by a doctrine, and it determines how we live; and thirdly, doctrine is the system in which we organize our thinking about law. It’s ironic: lack of doctrine in the church has led many Christians to think; “law bad – grace good.” But mankind simply doesn’t exist without laws. A law is a rule or guideline that we simply cannot function without. You can’t do anything without a guideline. Try playing a violin without following learned guidelines; it’s not going to sound good. Anybody want to go on a trip with the rest of humanity driving other cars without traffic laws? Not me. Moreover, humanity lives by one, or the other: God’s law (wisdom), or all other laws. Doctrine determines how that is organized and applied. But yet, it’s not important? Perplexing.

However, worse yet, without doctrine, many can be fooled into thinking that you can except the grace of God without accepting or embracing God’s law as opposed to all the other ones, especially the ones we makeup for ourselves. In fact, many believe today that the way to salvation is a rejection of God’s law because it is opposed to grace! Somehow, they think that we can “have life, and have it more abundantly” by following other guidelines besides those established by God! Hence, many will buy into the notion that God established His law as an antithetical teacher for purposes of understanding grace better. Buyer beware.

And as a result of doctrinal neglect, people are misled in varying degrees; ie., from God supposedly telling us through a leader to make someone a pastor, to God supposedly telling us through a leader to drink some really bad kool-aid. Either can be avoided by attention to doctrine. So, in respect to Susan’s example, and the most unfortunate extreme thereof, what doctrine can be observed? Answer: Anthropology, the doctrine of man. Here’s what it will teach you. First, God is a person (the doctrine of Theology Proper) who speaks to us from outside of us like any other person, and that through His word (doctrine of Bibliology). He speaks to us and the Holy Spirit gives us understanding (Pneumatology). Therefore, God doesn’t speak to us from inside of ourselves, he speaks to us from the outside by His word: “Faith comes by hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17). All of the voices inside of our head are our own, and hopefully formed by the word of God (sanctification which is under Soteriology, the doctrine of salvation). I know, it seems like a lot, but we expect math to be difficult – this is about life!

We don’t have our voices and God’s voice both speaking in our heads, with an endeavor to sort out who’s saying what following. All of the voices in our head are our own, and again, hopefully formed in right thinking by the mind of Christ. Therefore, “God told me,” “God called me,” etc., etc., is just not true. We have been conditioned to accept these sound bites all of our Christian lives and therefore, when someone tells us that God told them to tell us to drink the kool-aid, we drink. And worse yet, because we are doctrinally illiterate, when someone tells us grace is opposed to law, we believe that also. Hence, when you learn doctrine and use it to love people, get ready for the following: “All I said was that God spoke to me in a small, still voice. I can’t say anything to you because your a jerk, your just a walking encyclopedia of fifty-cent theological words. You can hang it on your beak buddy.”

One thing I have noticed is that many Christians I speak to in our day do not possess a working understanding of justification, sanctification, and glorification. Unfortunately, if you don’t understand those terms, which by the way are definitive biblical terms (1Cor 1:30 and 6:11), you cannot gain a sufficient understanding of Scripture, especially in the area of apologetics (defense of the truth, which all Christians are called to partake in, see Jude 3). If that’s you, your just buying into everything you hear at church; you have no other alternative. You will simply believe everything the pastor said that God supposedly told him. And by the way, in regard to staving off that bitter cyanide after-taste, what does he say is better, cherry, or strawberry?

paul