Here is the second part of my series titled Distractions from the Gospel. Find part one here.
Read the following list and try to guess what they have in common: Closed cannon, Cessationism, Transubstantiation, Third Wave theology, Asceticism, Dispensationalism, Sabbatarianism.
The common thread? People who are consumed with the lost spend almost no time contemplating them. I teach my students that the Gospel is the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection and the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
A complete and full understanding on substitutionary atonement is not going to save anyone. A position piece on the requirements for eldership will not gain anyone entrance to heaven. Even a proper stance on homosexuality will not help you with the second birth.
As false teachings crept into the body of believers, some falsely believed that more proper teaching would rid the problem. As more leaders chased after proper teaching, the hairs that were being split got finer and finer. Thanks to the blogsphere it is now possible to witness doctrinal debates over the context of a single Greek word in one of Paul’s pastoral writings (as if that matters).
There is no theology based on a single Greek word that is of any significance. And even if there was, it still would not get anyone saved.
Salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting the lost of their need for Jesus. Sometimes He convicts their conscience of their sin. Sometimes He offers the hurting a greater hope. sometimes He meets a physical need with healing. Whatever the gateway, He brings the reality of Jesus to the heart by the spirit.
I laid hands on a 13 year old boy this past Friday night. He was a good kid and a regular church attendee. He is part of a discipleship class that was doing Bible study and leadership training. During worship I felt lead to pray for him. While we were standing there I asked him what was happening. In an ongoing play by play he told me of an increasing bright light that he saw. Out of the light stretched a set of hands. Eventually Jesus came out of the light and called the boy to Him. As this boy began to feel the embrace of his Savior he wept openly. As the vision unfolded the boy was shown the lost all over the globe getting saved. The boy knew this was his call. You can’t get that at of a lexicon.
You cannot teach someone into an encounter with Jesus. It requires faith. Which is precisely the element that is not needed to promote your doctrinal position.
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> There is no theology based on a single Greek word that is of any significance.
The most important doctrinal debate of the fourth century, arguably one of the most important debates of all, hung on a single Greek letter!
homoiousious or homoousious
Is Jesus just a divine-like being, or is he truly one substance with the eternal nature of God?
This debate may not get anyone saved, but it did determine whether there was still a true expression of the church for them to be saved into.
I share some of your frustration over fruitless arguments over words, that the Scriptures warn us against, but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Doctrine is important!
Chris,
Check this out
http://tinyurl.com/y7qpub
Which church do you think is reaching the lost?
I love the stuff you’re coming out with right now. It makes me laugh out loud - nervously.
I’m convinced that the only reason we have so much intellectual treatment going on is because we bring our intellectual baggage to the gospel and then spend a lifetime getting rid of that baggage. We don’t learn anything - we just unlearn, if you catch my drift? So I think there is a strong case for working within the culture of intellectualism, like good missionaries, in order to help people with the renewing of the mind.
BUT, like you, I love that God, in all his facets, just loves to cut through all that with genuine ENCOUNTER. That’s where my heart is. That’s both the sole basis, and the daily reassuring evidence, of my salvation. That’s what I pray for others, and that’s how I prefer to minister.
Here’s a shocker: the early church had no Bible, no cannon of Scripture. No theologians. No commentaries. No internet. How WERE they saved? How DID they grow so quickly?
Acts 4:13 “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and percieved they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.”