THE MIST

"A mist in the pulpit will result in a fog in the pew." 

This truism, attributed to Charles Spurgeon (among others), is why I don't think I would have made a very good preacher even 5 years ago. 

Now, one of the great blessings of my position as pastor at Sardinia Baptist Church is the opportunity week by week to blow away the mist in my own understanding of the Christian faith.

It gets me excited every time. 

And I'm not talking about Bible trivia - it's big picture stuff. And how everything fits together. 

I'm coming to see that over the years I've swallowed a whole lot of "biblical doctrines" without examining the Scriptural basis for myself. And then I wondered why my beliefs felt so disjointed. 

I was not alone in this. I think this is a great weakness of the modern church in general. If the pastors and teachers have never applied critical thinking skills to their own presuppositions, the congregation is going to be left in a fog.

And if a congregation is in the fog, there's not going to be a lot of forward movement for that church. 

The average church doesn't need to be berated as much as it needs to be educated.

But there's too much mist up front. 

CASE CLOSED

When I was younger, I was impressed by any Biblical "expert" who could rattle off a dozen verses proving their particular viewpoint on Scripture. I assumed it meant that teacher really knew their Bible inside and out. 

Now I know that this is called proof texting - and, when it comes to defending a "Biblical doctrine", I consider it a practice which is suspect at best.

There was a (brief) time when Calvinism actually appealed to me. This was about 15 years ago when I was invited to a Together for the Gospel conference without knowing it was organized by Calvinists to promote Calvinism.

The two qualities which drew me in at that time were these:

1. It was presented as a "hard teaching that you just had to accept if you take the Bible seriously".
2. Several well-known pastors gave talks on all the Calvinist distinctives - based on plenty of verses from the Old and New Testaments.

At the time I didn't understand the inevitable damage done to a verse when it is isolated from its context. I was simply impressed that these men (always men!) could cite so much evidence for their hard teachings. 

I never stopped to consider that the flaws in proof texting make it as useful in promoting some obvious heresy like the Prosperity Gospel as it is for Calvinism.

If you aren't familiar with the dangers of proof texting yourself, consider one of the Prosperity Gospel preachers' favorite teachings from the Apostle Paul:

2 Corinthians 8:9 - "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." 

Or these words from Jesus Himself in Mark 11:22-24 - “Have faith in God,” Jesus said to them. “Truly I tell you that if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and has no doubt in his heart but believes that it will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

And a little Old Testament for good measure, in Malachi 3:10 - "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the LORD of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure."

How many more verses do you need to see the Bible's clear teaching that God's desire is to bless you with great riches ... as long as you tithe?

The case is settled. Right?

JESUS THE TEACHER

Just a relevant quote from Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy tonight - one which echoes much of my thinking about current American church trends and where the disconnect lies:

The situation we have just described - the disconnection of life from faith, the absence from our churches of Jesus the teacher - is not caused by the wicked world, by social oppression, or by the stubborn meanness of the people who come to our church services and carry on the work of our congregations. It is largely caused and sustained by the basic message that we constantly hear from Christian pulpits. We are flooded with what I have called "gospels of sin management," in one form or another, while Jesus' invitation to eternal life now - right in the midst of work, business, and profession - remains for the most part ignored and unspoken. (p.57)

He continues:

We who profess Christianity will believe what is constantly presented to us as gospel. If gospels of sin management are preached, they are what Christians will believe. And those in the wider world who reject those gospels will believe that what they have rejected is the gospel of Jesus Christ himself - when, in fact, they haven't yet heard it.

And so we have the result noted: the resources of God's kingdom remain detached from human life. There is no gospel for human life and Christian discipleship, just one for death or one for social action. The souls of human beings are left to shrivel and die on the plains of life because they are not introduced into the environment for which they were made, the living kingdom of eternal life. (p.58)